By Anne Baxter Campbell Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, Where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, Where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying; My throat is dry; My eyes fail while I wait for my God (Psalm 69:1-3, NKJV) …
Why Write?
By Michelle Arch I’ve spent nearly every weekend this year (and many weekends of the previous four years) working on my novel-in-progress and MFA thesis, Time of Death. To date, only a handful of workshop peers, a few contest judges, two editors, and one trusted writer friend have read excerpts from this body of work. When I’m not writing or …
The Care and Feeding of Readers
By Suzanne Woods Fisher A few months ago, I was tracking the traffic numbers on the Amish Wisdom blog and noticed a significant spike during the course of one week. An interview with a well known, bestselling author had been featured. Naturally, I assumed that interview was the cause for so many hits. But then I looked a little closer …
Listening to the Story
By Jane Kirkpatrick Some years ago I wrote a novel based on the life of a Native American woman. I’d worked for many years on an Indian reservation and had many native friends who helped me capture the essence of this woman. The book received fine reviews and I spent a fair amount of time doing newspaper and radio interviews. …
Top 3 things I’ve learned about Brand from Reality TV
By Traci Tyne Hilton That’s right. Blogging TV again. Why? Because there is no better place to learn about brand right now than Food Network Star, and because I love watching TV. #3: Your brand is your unique point of view and voice. The Meat on the Side girl, from a season or two back, cannot star in the same …
The Creative Person’s Guide to Time Management
By Judy Christie As a writer, I am drawn to creative people-smart, funny, interesting, innovative, imaginative. I am blessed to interact with fiction writers who explore and imagine and adapt to a dizzying rate of change, a combination that clogs schedules faster than a plateful of spaghetti can clog a drain (don’t ask how I know this). Sometimes we writers …
To Quote the Queen, “That Doesn’t Match!”
by Dr. Patrick Johnston I have a problem. No sooner do I step out of the bathroom on Sunday morning does my wife take one look at me and pronounce with the authority of the Queen of England, “That doesn’t match!” Though I really don’t see it, most of the time I just blame the curse of Adam and take …
Three Magic Phrases for a Writer
by Richard Mabry Early in my road to writing, author and teacher Alton Gansky taught me to ask a magic question: “What if?” One of his books began when he noted the presence of a military installation in a deserted location and asked himself, “What if that base suddenly disappeared?” The result was an excellent book. And it began with …
Making Research Fun
By Donna Schlachter I’ve seen the way some authors’ eyes nearly roll up into their heads at the word, “research”. After all, that’s just dry, boring stuff. We’re always told to ‘write what we know’. If we have to research a topic, we aren’t writing what we know. I used to write what I knew. My first yet-unpublished novel was …
Writing Effective Book Club Discussion Questions
By Sarah Sundin Book clubs. As readers, we delight in socializing with book-lovers. As writers, we delight in connecting with avid readers. Since I belonged to a book club long before I was published, I knew the importance of a good set of discussion questions. While some groups fall naturally into discussion, some don’t, and good questions stimulate conversation. I …