The Writer November 2016

When the going gets tough, I get takeout. When the going gets really tough, I roll up my sleeves and start cooking. Perhaps my mother's meatballs or my grandfather's marinara can't heal a broken heart, but they can sure as hell keep my hands busy. Food is so much more than fuel for our bodies; it's a tool we use to explain our origins, our family, our values. It's also the closest thing we mortals have to time travel: In a single lick of a rainbow-sprinkled ice cream cone, you're a third grader once again, sitting on the curb by the ice cream truck. It can be a memory-jogger for memoirists, a scenesetter for novelists, a focal point for essayists. Food is universal and yet wholly specific: We all eat,…

"Cut your manuscript ruthlessly but never throw anything away: it's amazing how often a discarded scene or description, which wouldn't fit in one place, will work perfectly later." —Robert Harris "I'M GOING TO MAJOR IN JOURNALISM," I announced to my mother the summer before my junior year in college. Her response: "I'm not paying tuition unless you major in something more sensible." Her reasons were complicated. Growing up in an orphanage from the age of 2 to 15, she was the daughter of a poverty-stricken, widowed Russian immigrant in Jersey City. Mom's fantasy of becoming a physical education teacher was derailed when she had to get a job right after high school. Sensible. I'd hated that word ever since Mom insisted on buying me hideous brown lace-up oxfords in seventh…

You've written, drafted, and redrafted your novel. You've shared it with your writing group, your parents, and your best friend. You're now ready to take the plunge and submit it professionally ­ but are you ready to receive critical feedback? Whether you get the criticism from an agent, an editor at a publishing house, or an editor who you hire, learning to receive it is an important step on your writer's journey. And the very first thing to do is... nothing. Don't react, begin drafting a rebuttal, get upset, or fire off a hasty email. Allow the feedback to sink in. Sleep on it. Remember that every writer gets something wrong, so if your editor feels your dialogue isn't snappy or that every character's voice sounds the same, this isn't…

"The life of the professional writer — like that of any freelance, whether she be a plumber or a podiatrist — is predicated on willpower. Without it there simply wouldn't be any remuneration, period." —Will Self It's a common problem that comes up in the adult-education classes I teach: What do you do when you don't have any clips? Don't worry, I assure my students ­ no one was born with clips, and editors know this. The most effective way to overcome a lack of writing credentials, I tell them, is to write the story that would not be written if not for you. Story proposals such as these, based on a writer's personal experience or professional expertise, have a far greater rate of success. Why? These stories offer a…

 Liz Moore Liz Moore Of the various literary accolades novelist Liz Moore has received, perhaps the most enviable is the Rome Prize in Literature, which allowed her to spend a year in Rome finishing her third novel. This novel, The Unseen World, was published this year by W.W. Norton to critical acclaim from publications including the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. It follows a daughter's attempts to piece together the truth about her father's past. Moore's first novel, The Words of Every Song, was about a fictional record company and her second, Heft, was a portrait of a man who weighs 550 pounds and the woman he loves from afar. Heft was long-listed for the IMPAC Literary Award, and Moore is also a recipient of…

A few weeks ago, my phone lit up with the familiar flash of an incoming text. "OK. I have a date," came the message from a friend who was just in the beginning stages of getting over a bad breakup. Attached was a screenshot of a cute, 30-something woman's Bumble profile: A few smiling photos, both solo and with pals, and those key, short but cryptic lines of self-description. My phone pinged again: "So can you do your recon thing?" Dating in the modern era is terrible: An endless string of high hopes and dashed expectations, countless hours spent browsing profiles on various sites, and recurring nightmares of winding up alone while all your friends, it seems, have paired off and are creating families of their own. So what is…