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…
People used to ask, “When is your next book due?” and I would laugh, self-consciously, because I didn’t have deadlines. I wasn’t a writer who had contracts or editors waiting for me to produce anything. In those bygone days, I…
After I jubilantly signed with an agent I met at last year’s Muse and the Marketplace conference in Boston, well-meaning friends and fellow writers began bombarding me with advice. You need more Facebook followers. You have to be more visible…
LOGLINE: A novelist must distill her story into a one-sentence logline, or she will fail to sell her book and will end up alone in a padded room. Anyone pitching a book can relate to the angst of writing a…
There’s a reason why Patricia Nelson receives top billing in my acknowledgments. Her editorial eye and support have been critical on the journey to publishing my debut novel, COTTONMOUTHS, out next month. I spoke with Patricia Nelson recently about her…
As you may know, Dead Darlings, “the site for everything novel,” is a production of GrubStreet’s year-long program, the Novel Incubator. Founded by novelist and GrubStreet’s artistic director, Christopher Castellani, and developed with novelists and Grub instructors, Lisa Borders and Michelle Hoover, the Incubator takes…