Writing ‘POC’ is not enough. It doesn’t merit applause, or points for diversity. What does merit applause and accolades is acknowledging and depicting unreduced minorities—especially marginalized voices—in writing. We are not a monolith. Our stories are as complicated and intersectional as anyone else’s.
by Leanna Renee Hieber
I’m often asked if my professional theatre and playwrighting background helps me as a fiction writer. It does in countless ways. Theatrical form, training and structure are holistically integrated into how I see the world and operate as a storyteller.
by Cat Rambo,
I’ve talked about how to work with a mentor previously, so I wanted to follow-up on that by talking about something that overlaps a bit with that: asking for favors.
by Katherine Quevedo
Looking for unconventional, potentially striking ways to explore what it means to be human in your writing? It may seem counterintuitive, but personification—ascribing human qualities to inanimate objects—can open new avenues to plumb the depths of human experience.
by Cat Rambo
I’m doing the SFWA Mentor program for my third round now, and in talking with some folks, I thought providing an overview of my process might be useful.
by Cat Rambo
Milestones are markers that show you’ve reached the end of one of these steps. Just as physical road markers tell you how far you’ve journeyed, these milestones help you mark progress.
by Hunter Liguore
Writing classes and books are filled with tips on creating characters and developing plot, but very few ever offer the golden jewel that oversees all the other components meshing together to arrive at a story or novel: coherence. In fact, when an author discovers coherence for the first time, they will experience a place where words melt away, and the only thing that remains is a deep knowing and trust in how the story will take shape.
Using the Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse, the Archive has created the “National Emergency Library” and removed virtually all controls from the digital copies so that they can be viewed and downloaded by an infinite number of readers.
by Kali Wallace
By now everybody who spends any time on the internet has seen the quarantine memes. Isaac Newton invented calculus during a plague outbreak–what are you doing with your time? Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when stuck inside during bad weather–why haven’t you invented a literary genre yet? Look at how Giovanni Boccaccio used his pandemic–have you been as productive?
by Bud Sparhawk
After being in the writing game for nearly thirty years and selling my output on a fairly steady basis I still find myself puzzled whenever another blank page stares at me. Ideas abound, but only a few may hold the power to become complete stories.
Tollar has a stolen dragon egg & that’s the least of her problems. When the dragon hatches & imprints on her, she must rely on her anxious neighbour. As threats loom, it will take cooperation & some impressive magic to keep everything they love safe.
Mary G. Thompson is the acclaimed author of Flicker and Mist, Wuftoom, and Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee, which was the winner of the Westchester Fiction Award and a finalist for the Missouri Gateway Award. Thompson’s short fiction has appeared in Dark Matt
