The Other!
Shakespeare did it. Flannery O’Connor did it. Jonathan Franzen does it all the time. Every playwright, short story writer, and novelist does it as a matter of course, yet there is still plenty of debate over the writer’s right to…
Category: Authors
Writing your (gayest) truth
There are invisible radio waves floating around our heads, and somehow every new writer picks up one particular frequency that translates to: write your truth. It’s the first advice many of us receive, and the most often repeated. Some may…
Friday Feast: 12-Step Writing Process, Writer’s Laze, Working Class Literature, Committing to Diversity When You’re White, and the Middle of Things: Advice for Young Writers
I love reading about the writing processes of authors. You never know what knowledge you can glean and what new nugget you can pop in your writer toolbox. I especially love that Margo Kelly, author of our first link, highlighted…
Friday Feast: Frank Ocean, Harper Lee, and the Reclusive Artist; Stranger Things Characterization Lessons; Jumping the Line vs. Waiting; Why One Trans Woman Writes; and Carrie Brownstein’s Reading List
My writing process involves marinating on a topic for a while. One way I do that is through music. The musician I listened to most during a period of revision angst and relationship turmoil was Frank Ocean. I put Channel Orange on repeat while…
Friday Feast: Oprah Selects the Underground Railroad, Emma Watson Selects Persepolis, Dietland’s Author on Facing Fear and Not Holding Back, the Definition of Author Platform, and the Most Beautiful Library in Each US State
This week’s intro will be quick and dirty — just like me. Just kidding. Not really. In lieu of a proper intro this week due to a lingering chest cold and a long-ass bus ride, please enjoy this photo of the…
Friday Feast: An Open Letter to Authors at Bookstore Tables, How Rejection Shaped One Writer, How Novelists Recover History’s Marginalized Heroes, Donald Ray Pollock’s 5 Writing Tips, and What Makes a Bestseller
Aw. It’s sad to watch a poor, lonely author in a bookstore or at a book festival who simultaneously desires and dreads conversations with customers. Because people! Conversations! Eeek! And then there are those authors who flag you down like street canvassers…