I’ve always tried hard to make things happen for myself. As a writer, I enter contests, apply for fellowships and residencies, and submit to journals. I seek out feedback wherever I can get it. I take writing classes, attend conferences,…
In Rebecca Traister’s newest tour de force, Good and Mad (Simon & Schuster, 2018), she shares a memory from an early job in a male-dominated office where she found herself weeping in inexpressible rage. A female colleague dragged her into…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a wonderful review will make little impression on an artist whereas a bad review will be seared onto said artist’s brain and heart. Like a terrible tattoo, a negative review is impossible to…
I wanted to see the movie, Genius, because it was about Maxwell Perkins, the famed editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. But it is really about Perkins’ relationship with Thomas Wolfe, who I’m embarrassed to say, I had…
I’ve been working on edits pretty much non-stop since I sold my debut novel (along with mourning my poor dead cat, getting married, going to Chile, and unfollowing relatives on Facebook). There was the big developmental edit. Then came the line…
Into the Valley, by Ruth Galm, a 272 page novel, might be of interest to aspiring novelists for two reasons; one, it’s a terrific novel. And two, Ms. Galm’s manuscript was rejected over sixty times before she finally got it…