When a Poet Writes a Novel
When a poet writes a novel the moon coils up into a copper-headed snake and hisses secrets. The horizon line bends like a cello string after the sun nods off into the thinning green sea to sleep. When a poet…
Category: Craft Discussion
Sharing an Inspiration with Joyce Carol Oates
When I set out to write a novel inspired by the case of Charles Schmid, the “Pied Piper of Tucson,” I knew from the start that I was not the only writer to find a story in this case.
What to Do When Words Fail You
I have twenty minutes to write, about anything, anything at all, and therein lies the problem, the problem of too much choice. I like limits. I adore constraints. Now I’ve got 19 minutes and eight seconds. Shit. I suppose I…
The Importance of a Style Guide and Log
Here’s a comment my copyeditor, Jade Z. Scibilia, made about my last manuscript: “I laughed when you had Lynch mention the number of Johns in the police force (I recall we had to work on that in Idyll Threats). Buuuuut, we have…
Ditch the Heavy Metal
Twenty years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by the novelist Robert Cormier. That night he said, “The reader doesn’t care what you were trying to write. The reader only cares about what’s on the page.” In…
Fact or Fiction in Historical Fiction
“Writing a novel is to fabricate an elaborate lie. The end game is not to recreate reality.” -Craig Larsen in On Historical Fiction, True Stories, and not Recreating Reality on LitHub, October 7, 2016 I grew up in a small…