by Martha Alderson As the world attempts to open up again, it’s easy to want to jump right back into all the activities that brought you joy before COVID. First, take a moment to assess your subplots. I’m not talking about the subplots in your story, but the subplots of your life. In stories, a
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Natalie Baszile on We Are Each Other’s Harvest & Making the Creative Jump
Natalie Baszile is the author of the novel, Queen Sugar, which was not only nominated for an NAACP Image Award but also made into a television series produced and directed by Ava DuVernay for the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Natalie’s new book is We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy.
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Get Inspired by Art with Mary Rakow: Small details have a big impact on your story
by Mary Rakow FURTHER INTRODUCTION TO THIS COLUMN As we saw in the first and second posts, we can find inspiration for secular writing in religious art, and inspiration for religious writing in secular art. Why? Because great art crosses all boundaries and categories. We also saw that once we write a text it starts
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Beta Readers and Your Path to a Successful Book Launch
by Carla King While teaming up with other writers can help you finish your book, beta readers can help you answer the question: Will my book succeed? If you’re like most authors, you don’t want to show readers your book until it’s perfect: perfectly edited, perfectly proofread, and perfectly formatted. Don’t wait! Find people who
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Jasmin Darznik on The Bohemians & Writing Historical Fiction
Jasmin Darznik is the New York Times bestselling author of Song of a Captive Bird. She is also the author of The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life and the forthcoming, The Bohemians. The Bohemians is a novel that imagines the friendship between photographer Dorothea Lange and her Chinese American assistant in
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New Year, New Day in Publishing
On March 27th SFWC Director Laurie McLean gave a presentation as part of the Mechanics Institute – San Francisco Writers Conference partnership entitled: New Year, New Day in Publishing. Here is the Powerpoint presentation for anyone who would like to see her thoughts on publishing in 2021. New Year, New Day in Publishing
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How Nonfiction Books Build Conversations, Connections, and Community
by Michelle Travis I’m a law professor by day. For the past twenty years, I’ve used my research and writing to advocate for advancing women’s workplace equality and work/family integration. I’ve gained an understanding of the barriers to women’s career advancement, and I’ve become an expert on legal and policy reforms like paid family and
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Beyond The ‘Zon—There’s more than one way to publish a book
by Amanda Clay Are you exclusive or wide? It’s a question asked in every indie author circle. Exclusive—meaning you publish your ebooks exclusively through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing; or Wide—your book is available on all digital platforms such as Kobo, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble, and in libraries. It’s a distinction that’s highly debated, often
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Off’s Chris Colin & Rinee Shah on the Internet, Humor, and Collaboration
Chris Colin and Rinee Shah are author and illustrator, respectively, of the new book Off: The Day the Internet Died, A Bedtime Fantasy. Off is a humorous, illustrated imagining of what might happen to the world if the Internet were to die from one day to the next. Host Matthew Felix discussed with Chris and
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What a Character! Writing Character in Memoir
by Louise Nayer When writing a memoir, writing character is more complicated because you are often writing about close family. Creating living, breathing characters is just as important in memoir as in fiction. You can always share your writing with relatives you care about—just to make sure you remain on speaking terms; however, as in
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