By Matthew Felix “Why do you write?” I had just walked into a busy café. The only seat available was the one across from the man now asking the question. A scruffy septuagenarian with colorful but suspect stories about giving up millions, living with Navajos, and unwittingly making an award-winning documentary, he had also been
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Get Inspired by Art: The Power of Silent Reflection
By Mary Rakow INTRODUCTION This is a startling sculpture by the German Expressionist Rudolf Belling. It was the start of a journey in my writing as I wrestled with story of Cain, an ancient, iconic story given at the start of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. In the last post we saw how a family
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The Literary Craft of Accessibility
by Rebecca Hunter What makes an “easy read” easy? Why are some books that are labeled “low-quality” still so popular? The answers to these questions lie in the concept of accessibility. An accessible book is one that is easily understood and appreciated by a wide audience. The idea itself is straightforward, but it can be
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Enter Writing Contests and Succeed
by B. Lynn Goodwin You polish your writing, imagining your audience. You read it over. Out loud. Does it say exactly what you want it to say? You have a friend read it to you. Impressed, she says, “You should submit this to contests. Put yourself out there. Get some recognition for your work.” Maybe
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The Inner Life of Writers and Their Protagonists
by Martha Alderson The present day story that unfolds in scenes on the page is known as the front story. Behind the front story is a character’s backstory made up of everything that has happened to her before the present moment. The beliefs and people she was raised with, her education, and her emotional development
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Get Inspired by Art with Mary Rakow: Writing with Hope and Courage
by Mary Rakow INTRODUCTION In an earlier post I suggested that images can be our companions over the course of our writing career. This is true. But we’re not always aware of it. As Steve Jobs said in his masterful commencement address to students at Stanford, “We can’t connect the dots looking forward. We can
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