Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2018 i The Writer

Readers, I have a confession: Every time I step into a home décor store, I get a little nauseous. Naturally, this is a bit of a problem when you’re still trying to furnish a home you moved into last July. But every time I enter these stores, I become overwhelmed at the sheer amount of words plastered on every mug, rug, or pillow shanty. “IT’S FALL, Y’ALL!” scream the decorative cheese plates. “LIVE EVERY DAY LIKE A NEW ADVENTURE!” admonishes the wall art. “I LOVE TO COOK WITH WINE,” confesses the cutting board. “SOMETIMES I EVEN PUT IT IN THE FOOD.” I hate it. I hate it so much it makes me dizzy. And for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why. It doesn’t bother me a bit when…

Anyone who’s read the romantic classics of the past few centuries is well-versed in literary marriage proposals. There’s Mr. Darcy’s courtly declaration of love and admiration for Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice; Rhett Butler’s coarse but witty proposition to newly widowed Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind; Benedick and Beatrice’s begrudging confession of mutual adoration in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. When Portland, Oregon, writer Jason Brick considered how to craft a memorable marriage proposal to his girlfriend, literary agent Rachel Letofsky, he knew he was up against some historically steep competition. So he pitched her the first page of a manuscript. Flash back to the year before, when Brick and Letofsky met at Write on the River, a conference in Wenatchee, Washington. Brick fell immediately in love,…

START YOU STARTED YOUR MANUSCRIPT WITH SUCH ENTHUSIASM. You wrote 20 pages in ONE NIGHT. Your brain was popping with ideas. Scenes flowed. You were sure you’d be done with the whole thing in a month. And then, one quiet morning, you sat down at your keyboard and nothing happened. Your fingers felt heavy. You started reading over the last few paragraphs. Awful! You clicked back a few chapters. Dear God. What were you thinking? You don’t know how to go forward, you can’t bear to go back. You’re stuck. It’s a terrible feeling, and it’s one that almost all authors confront. As a longtime teacher for Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City, I see this phenomenon a lot, and it can be devastating. Some writers just quit and…

No story will make it off the page if story, character, setting – and a host of other elements – are not deftly handled. But there’s one important aspect of fiction writing that isn’t talked about as much as character or plot, but is just as essential to the story: the language itself. Language drives the work. Language makes everything happen. Language that falls flat makes characters fall flat. No matter the style, when the language really works, it charms us. It hooks us. Some writers find that figurative language in particular – language that works on a different level than a purely literal one – grabs the reader in ways unadorned writing never could. It functions, in part, to meet that old saw: Show, don’t tell. Yet how does…

During her M.F.A. in Creative Writing residencies at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, writer and professor Racquel Henry became obsessed with seeing a fox. “Our campus has wild animals, and everyone kept talking about these fox sightings,” she explains. “The red fox is most common, but the black fox is rare. When my colleagues and I began our literary magazine, we wanted it to be a different sort of publication – a mix of literary and genre writing side-by-side, which is relatively rare. We decided to title it Black Fox.” Henry, along with Pamela Harris and Marquita Hockaday, met at Farleigh Dickinson. They got together in the sprawling Vanderbilt Mansion on campus and hammered out the details of their now-seven-year old literary magazine, ultimately deciding it would blend…

1. Do your research. Before you sign up for a conference, explore the faculty lineup and daily schedule to see what sessions will be beneficial to your work. Note the workshops you’d like to attend, and find out what the protocol is for registering. And do so by the cutoff date. 2. Be prepared. If you are asked to bring a piece to workshop, make sure you have it. Likewise, pack all of the items you’ll need – notepad, pens, your tablet, a voice recorder – to ensure you and your work will continue to benefit from the workshop once you’re back at home. 3. Keep an open mind. Whether commenting on someone else’s work or hearing feedback on your own, be open to new ideas and different ways of…

EXCERPT: MOTHEREST When my mother caught me rummaging in her nightstand, she said, You must never look in there again. She said, Certain things are private. Do you know what private means? I did, but I told her I didn’t, which was maybe my version of what private meant. When something is private, she said, it belongs only to you. From then on, I understood my mother to be private, in how she kept herself to herself, and in how, in my mind, she belonged only to me. I really thought I was entitled to her, to the most intimate parts of her, which seemed to be in that drawer: photos, a Bible, stacks of letters held together with rubber bands, a diary. None of it helped me. Most of…

Committing your time and resources to attend a conference or workshop is a big step in your writing career. The options available for writers keep proliferating – which is awesome. But even if you narrow it down to a certain genre or region, choosing where to go is a difficult process. So we talked to the real experts – working writers who’ve had fellowships, been residents, netted invitations to conferences, or helped organize workshops – for their insights. Many writers didn’t want to use their names when speaking frankly about their experiences at well-known conferences, but all together a dozen were involved in writing this story. What kind of program do you want? If you have work ready to share, a workshop is what you should be looking for. Kelly…

Susan Tepper “Nothing in the artistic realm should ever be forced. If the writer is struggling, something is off.” Stephanie Dickinson “Just because there are Instagram photographs of every conceivable thing, don’t assume description isn’t necessary or welcome. Everyone knows what a table at the coffee bar looks like, but not your particular table, not the unique people around you, not you/your narrator.” Rosalind Palermo Stevenson “Don’t depend on overly familiar phrases, often bordering on or being actual clichés. I believe that the most important thing for a writer is to be authentic and to write from a place of their own interior vision, and to develop and discover the language and writing style that best serves this vision.” Barry Kitterman “If it’s language that is natural to your protagonist…

What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing Edited by Peter Ginna We know how important book editors are; we know our manuscript will eventually need one if we intend to see it traditionally published. Editors are usually listed right behind an author’s spouse, parents, or god on acknowledgement pages – and sometimes even before. But what do they really do? That’s the question this anthology attempts to answer, featuring essays written by 27 different publishing professionals. The book tackles both the editing process as a whole (“from proposal to book”) and in-depth analyses of editing niches: literary fiction, genre fiction, academic nonfiction, freelancing, line editing, and more. I Should Be Writing: A Writer’s Workshop By Mur Lafferty This colorful handbook from the host of the popular…

A year and a half ago, some friends and I up and decided to start a writers’ conference. Well, that’s the story we tell at bars, anyway. In April, we’ll embark on the third iteration of our writers’ weekend, called the Red House Writers’ Retreat. By all markers, it’s been a wonderful, wild, stressful ride, and we’re happy that it’s also been a successful one. Each retreat to date has filled to capacity, and every attendee has walked away happy. But writers are really just nerds with pens and word processors, even before John Green made being a nerd cool again, and this particular group of nerds wasn’t going to do anything without a good set of guidelines. These rules, or tenets, as we’ve been referring to them, have made…

Information in this section is provided to The Writer by the individual markets and events; for more information, contact those entities directly. Subscribers to The Writer have online access to information on publishers, publications, conferences, contests and agents. Go to writermag.com and click on Writing Resources. ALASKA Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference Homer, Alaska, June 8-12. Offers daily workshops, readings, and panel presentations in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and the business of writing. Manuscript reviews and academic credit also available. Keynote speaker Anthony Doerr. Contact: Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, Kenai Peninsula College – Kachemak Bay Campus, 533 E. Pioneer Ave., Homer, AK 99603. 907-235-7743. KachemakBayWritersConf@alaska.edu writersconference.homer.alaska.edu ARIZONA Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference Tempe, Arizona, February 22-24. Hosted by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Schedule…

As a short story writer, Kristen Iskandrian has been recognized with an O’Henry Prize. Now she’s created considerable buzz with her first novel, Motherest. From a glowing New York Times writeup to starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, Iskandrian’s book is resonating with critics and readers alike. Written with tenderness, depth, and humor, Motherest is about life, early adulthood, and family. It also deals with motherhood on several levels, with profound storytelling that feels deeply honest. Using a combination of first-person narration from protagonist Agnes and epistolary form, the writing is nuanced, intelligent, and realistic. Somehow Iskandrian manages to be both subtle and impactful at the same time. Motherest – and especially Agnes – stays with you long after you have finished reading. Transitioning from short story to novel…