Any writer who has had a book on submission knows the stomach-twisting anxiety. Why hasn’t anyone called? Where is my six-figure deal and my auction? Ha! More likely, you will be greeted with crickets. Weeks, maybe months, of crickets. I’m…
Baseball pitchers rarely rely on a single pitch. They mix things up with fast balls, changeups, curve balls, knuckle balls, sliders, sinkers, and cutters. They consider who they are pitching to, how many strikes they have, how many outs, how…
My high school best friend, Jen, and I were discussing books recently. She started telling me, with great enthusiasm, about a novel she had just read that she thought I would like. But she stopped mid-sentence and said, “Oh, never…
Apocalyptic stories of rising sea levels and choking dust storms come to mind when most people think about climate fiction, the emerging genre often referred to as cli-fi. Dystopian anarchy where nations battle over water resources appear in books and…
As writers, we expect rejection. We are told we should embrace it, that we aren’t really writers until someone slams a door in our face. Rejection seasons us, toughens our skin. I think I may have internalized this advice a…
In April I hiked through Zion National Park. I stood gape-mouthed, staring at the burnt orange, gold, and greens in the walls of a canyon so deep it made me dizzy. Layers of sedimentary rock rose up in swirling stripes…