Indholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2019 i Writer's Digest

1 Histories of Yore “Breaking In” (Page 20) author J. Kasper Kramer writes about how digging into the histories of other countries can help us to understand our own present. 2 Some More Towles Amor Towles talks about his book club, current works-in-progress, and promoting his work in an extended cut of The WD Interview (Page 42.) 3 The Whole Truth Karen Russell, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Jericho Brown gave more insight on truth in writing than we could include in “Truth Serum” (Page 22). Read more of what they had to say when interviewed by WD contributor Jera Brown. To find all of the above online companions to this issue in one handy spot, visit WritersDigest.com/dec-19.…

KILBY BLADES is a 40-time-award-winning author of romance and women’s fiction. Her debut novel Snapdragon was a HOLT Medallion finalist, a Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize semifinalist, and an Independent Publisher Book Awards medalist. Blades helps authors overcome marketing barriers by exposing harmful myths and teaching them how to think like pros. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and managed more than $40 million in ad spend in VP and C-level digital marketing roles. She is also the author The Book Marketing Audit, Marketing Steamy Romance, and The Book Reviews Booster. She writes a column on social media for the Romance Writers of America Romance Writers Report and runs an author advice portal on SixFigureAuthor.com BOB ECKSTEIN is an award-winning writer, New Yorker cartoonist, and snowman expert (The…

“What kind of stuff do you write?” one student asked on my first day at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. After a decade away from the classroom, I was back to teaching. “I write newspaper and magazine articles,” I said, “and creative non›ction, as you’ll be doing.” It was a lie. I couldn’t remember when I’d last written a creative essay. It must have been before my distant, volatile mother fell ill, leaving me resigned to the idea that our story of family dysfunction would not end happily. It seemed that nothing I wrote could change that. With a surplus of time and lack of inspiration, I accepted an adjunct position to teach creative non›ction. Although I couldn’t get myself to tell my own stories, I could require that my…

In a complex marketplace saturated with authors and ruled by computer algorithms, one advantage trumps all others: the ability to earn new fans. Fans are different from readers. Readers are always on the hunt for their next great book, while fans are on the hunt for their next favorite author. They want a steady source of books that they are likely to love for years to come. Traditional publishers cater to this. They curate the work of authors whose stories their readers will love and deliver a consistent experience. They pay advances up front, take care of marketing and administration and deliver new readers to authors’ doors. It follows that indie authors—even commercially successful ones—view hybrid authoring as an opportunity. Not to be confused with hybrid publishers (which split up…

All genres hold truth; they just come at it in different ways. For this article, we interviewed three writers about finding and conveying truth in different mediums. Pulitzer-nominated Karen Russell writes fantastical short stories, novellas, and novels influenced by the magical realists of Latin America. Her newest book, Orange World and Other Stories, covers much of the eerie, mystical American landscape as well as the beauty and horror of romance, friendship, and motherhood. Esmé Weijun Wang’s memoir in essays, The Collected Schizophrenias, depicts life with schizoaffective disorder and addresses the stigma of mental illness, especially schizophrenia. It was the recipient of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize and a Whiting Award for Nonfiction and is a New York Times bestseller. Her debut novel, The Border of Paradise, also deals with mental illness.…

Amor Towles didn’t one day decide to quit his job in the financial sector to try his hand at novel writing. Quite the opposite, really. He began writing when he was a child and followed that passion to Yale, where he studied under the visiting professor and novelist Peter Matthiessen. Matthiessen encouraged Towles, who realized, “What I’ve imagined could come true. My dream of being a writer is not just me being crazy. My sense that I could do this well, is not crazy.” Following his time at Yale, Towles then earned an MA in English from Stanford, where he worked closely with novelist, poet, and literary critic Gilbert Sorrentino. From there, his career path took a left turn as he joined a friend who started an investment firm. Towles…

Dear FYSA, I want to use experiences I have had/witnessed in my life and conversations I have been a part of in my novel, but, for example, my mother will for sure recognize herself in a character, and that is gonna get awkward. In “writing what you know,” how much should you alter in order to not offend the actual parties involved without sacrificing the nuance of why it is noteworthy to begin with? Sincerely, Taking Notes Dear Notes, Ahhhh, yes. The time our brother threw up in the holy water cistern. The moment our dad accidentally sent a selfie on the toilet. That day our husband kept calling his co-worker “Baby” because he misheard her self-intro of “Amy.” These are the golden nuggets with which we can pepper our…

The most frequent mistake newcomers to nonfiction make is picking a subject that’s lackluster, self-congratulatory, or just a diary-like rendering of something mundane they went through. Sorry, but no editors I know want to publish a piece about how cute your cats, gardenias, or grandchildren are. I know it’s counterintuitive, but what makes you successful and lovable in real life might make you unlovable and unknowable on the pages of a short essay. So if you portray yourself as strong, wealthy, good-looking, and happily married, audiences might stop reading after the third line. I learned this the hard way when I first brought a piece into my writing workshop about an ex-boyfriend whose surprise visit rattled me. “She comes off like a well-off, white, 40-year-old married woman with a good…

RELEVANCE: When using storytelling in your articles, make sure the story fits with your topic and adds depth to the points you are making. CONCISION: Stick to the point and be succinct. Don’t ramble and add irrelevant information because you are telling a story. GOOD CHARACTERS: Every good story has good characters, and that goes for nonfiction, too. All should play a role in the story and make it strong. UNIVERSALITY: This refers to themes and concepts that are universal (love, death, friendship, etc.). When you include these with the storytelling, your reader will be able to better relate to and understand the point you are trying to get across. THE FIVE SENSES: Good storytelling places the reader in the scene by incorporating as many of the five senses as…

Eager and a bit nervous about your first big writing conference? Don’t worry—you’ll have a wonderful time. Here’s what you can expect: • MORE PANELS AND WORKSHOPS THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY ATTEND. Larger conferences typically offer concurrent sessions, which means you’re going to have to make a choice. Go with the sessions that best address the type or genre of writing you want to pursue. • A LARGE CROWD THAT SOON SEEMS LIKE FAMILY. No matter what kind of writing you do, you almost certainly will meet others who share your passion. Exchange contact information so you can stay in touch and help each other when you return home. • GREAT SPEAKERS WHO WILL INSPIRE AND MOTIVATE YOU. Take their advice and encouragement to heart. • NOT-SO-GREAT SPEAKERS WHO STILL…

CAPTION THIS: THE WINNERS In our July/August 2019 “Potpourri For the Pen” column, we asked readers to try their hand at writing a caption for this cartoon by WD contributing editor Bob Eckstein. WD editors selected the following captions as the winners: WINNER: “Congratulations! You’re on top of today’s leader board with 23 miles and two breakthroughs!” —Erik Sternberger FIRST RUNNER UP: “No one at the gym cares to hear about my problems as much as you do.” —Joseph Picca SECOND RUNNER UP: “Doctor, are the tissues for sweat or tears?” —Felix Pagan Bob Eckstein is a New York Times bestseller and award-winning cartoonist and illustrator for The New Yorker and The New York Times. His newest book is Everyone’s a Critic: The Ultimate Cartoon Book by the World’s Greatest…

USING RECIPES IN YOUR NON-COOKBOOK MANUSCRIPT Want to make your story more savory? On the Market author Audrey Wick suggests including the recipes your characters devour. bit.ly/RecipesInYourManuscript 14 SHIRLEY JACKSON QUOTES ABOUT WRITERS AND WRITING WD senior editor Robert Lee Brewer shares his favorite quotes about writing from the author of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, “The Lottery,” and The Haunting of Hill House. bit.ly/ShirleyJacksonQuotes WRITING ABOUT YOUR LIFE WITHOUT RUINING YOUR RELATIONSHIPS “Write what you know” is common writing advice, as authors often mine what they know about their friends and family for stories. Debut novelist Mark Guerin writes about entering this delicate territory. bit.ly/WritingAboutYourLife…

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the largest writing event in the world: National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo). If you don’t know about NaNoWriMo, more than 300,000 writers sign up each November for a simple but audacious challenge: write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. That translates into a very do-able 1,667 words per day. The idea is to banish your internal editor, plunge into your imagination, and write your story today—not during that novel-killing period of time known as … “someday.” One’s creativity shouldn’t be a hall pass from the stiff and forbidding demands of your life. NaNoWriMo’s gift is to make creativity a priority for a month—and we hope, longer. But NaNoWriMo is so much more than a 50,000-word challenge. In honor of the…

As the editors of WD pondered the role of truth in writing, we decided to showcase highlights from David Sedaris’s WD Interview with editor-at-large Jessica Strawser from the October 2013 issue of WD. Sedaris is currently on tour across the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Australia telling his trademark hilarious yet poignant true stories. How do you know when an idea is going to solidify into an essay? I have a file on my computer about things that I’d always wanted to write about. Like, I always wanted to write about my father kind of having an obsession with this boy on my swim team when I was growing up. Then one day it seemed like, I’m far enough away from that incident to write about it [“Memory Laps,” Let’s Explore…

Natalie Kimber worked as an assistant to Muriel Nellis at Literary and Creative Artists Inc. and then under Carole Sargent at Georgetown University’s Office of Scholarly Publications. She earned a BA in liberal studies with a focus in theology and Latin at Georgetown in 2010, and she is a Caux Scholar. Upon graduation she founded the Sun Rae Agency and then joined The Rights Factory in 2014. She is the agency’s first New York City-based agent. “From the Sangre de Cristo mountains to the streets of New York, from ancient history to modern literature, I am ever in pursuit of the mystical experience of art and life,” Kimber says. Kimber also started the Weehawken Writers & Artists Studio in memory of Judith Wadia, a multidisciplinary artist and community activist who…

Collaborating can be fun and a way to find new approaches to your work. Here are 10 tips for getting the most out of the experience. For the sake of brevity I’m going to assume I don’t have to say things like “Don’t bite people if you dislike their ideas” or “Don’t show up day drunk to meetings.” 1. BE CLEAR. Never assume your partners understand you or what you’re going to do next as part of the project. Remind yourself that sometimes we all assume our partners are mind-readers. 2. DO YOUR BIT. Once you have a clearly defined next step, do it. You can’t control other people, so focus on the one thing you can control—your own work. 3. HAVE AN AGENDA. Aimless meetings that don’t produce anything…

1. List your motivations for publishing the piece. If it’s revenge, redemption, or making tons of money, rethink your decision. 2. Read over your work a day or two later. Ask yourself how you’d feel if this were published about you. 3. If you’re worried, before you submit your work to an editor, show it to the mate, parents, child, boss, or co-worker in the piece and ask, “Will you still speak to me if this sees print?” If they say no, ask, “What can I do to change it?” In some cases, it will only require taking out a few lines to preserve a lifelong relationship. 4. Read your favorite essayists and memoirists and underline diplomatic passages chronicling their complicated relationships with their mothers, fathers, spouses, or other relatives…

Hello, dear readers. Welcome to our November/December issue, The Truth Issue. And boy howdy, am I ever ready to tell some truth! Those of you who follow us, in these pages, on the internet, and all points in between, have probably been waiting months for me to explain the things you’ve been seeing and hearing in the press, on Twitter, from those whisper networks … and now, at long last I can. We have had a challenging year here at Writer’s Digest. In March of this year, our former parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, setting in motion months of uncertainty for us. Would Writer’s Digest see its 100th anniversary? Would we be able to keep doing the work we love so dearly? Then, in June, Writer’s Digest…

POETIC FORM: STRAMBOTTO The strambotto is an Italian form that traces back to the 13th century. The form shown here was originally known as ottava siciliana or strambotto popolare, and it was the preferred form in southern Italy. Meanwhile, a variant form (strambotto toscano) was more popular in Tuscany; the Tuscan version is now known as ottava rima (covered in our September 2018 issue). Here are the basic rules: • Octave (eight-line) poems or stanzas • Hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) lines • Rhyme scheme: abababab ALTERNATE VERSION: There’s also a six-line variant form (still called strambotto) with hendecasyllabic lines and an ababab rhyme scheme. Multiple sources hint that the six- and eight-line strambottos can be combined to make the popular sonnet form. Here is an example by a Poetic Asides reader: Robert…

Amanda Goldblatt Hard Mouth (Literary fiction, August, Counterpoint Press) “An adventure novel upended by grief and propelled by the aberrant charm of its narrator, Hard Mouth explores what it takes to both existentially and literally survive.” WRITES FROM: Chicago. PRE-MOUTH : This book is the first novel I ever tried to write. I waited until I felt crushed by an idea. Prior, and continuously, I wrote stories and essays. Several of these have been published in journals and magazines. Ten years ago, I wrote a long essay, called “Catalpa,” published by The Cupboard Pamphlet. TIME FRAME: I worked on this novel for seven or eight years. Between drafts, I wrote smaller works. But the work on Hard Mouth was consistent and often relentless. ENTER THE AGENT: I found my agent,…

WHAT OTHER FACTORS MAKE A GOOD PLAY? The greatest dialogue, plot, scenery, and all that in the world are nothing without good actors. A good actor can turn mediocre work into fantastic work, and vice versa. I know a lot of recent plays want to turn a mirror on the audience, so you’re represented onstage. I don’t really want a mirror because I know what my life is like. I want a window to someplace recognizable that I’ve never seen. That’s why my plays are set in different eras and places. I like going back to the past and writing allegories for now. I know a good play when I sit at the edge of my seat and I want to see what happens next. WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE…

THE CHALLENGE: Write the first line (one sentence only, 25 words or fewer) to a story based on the photo prompt below. You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story. TO ENTER: Email your entry to yourstory contest@aimmedia.com with the subject “Your Story 102” (entries must be pasted directly into the body of the email; attachments will not be opened). NOTE: WD editors select the top 12 entries and post them on our website (writersdigest.com/your-story-competition online in December, when readers will vote for their favorite to help rank the top 10 winners! The winners will be published in a future issue of Writer’s Digest. DON’T FORGET: Your name and mailing address. One entry per person. DEADLINE: November 18, 2019.…

After all your hard work and writing the perfect query, you now have an article writing assignment. The editor has detailed the word count, deadline, the rights, and the payment, and now it’s time to write the article. Keep in mind everything you know about the magazine: the style, the tone, the use of quotes. You will now put it to good use. If this is your first assignment and you aren’t sure how to begin, a formal outline is a good place to start. An outline can save you a lot of time in the long run because it will give you a structure to follow and help you stay on track. CREATING AN EFFECTIVE OUTLINE Outlining is an effective tool for organizing the information you collected for your…

1 North Carolina Writers’ Network 2019 Fall Conference Learn from top industry pros at this long-running conference held in majestic western North Carolina. WHEN: November 8–10, 2019. WHERE: DoubleTree Hilton Asheville-Biltmore, Asheville, N.C. PRICE: Full conference with meals is $275 for NCWN members, $400 for nonmembers. Tiered pricing includes with and without meals/workshops and single-day admissions. Opportunities for manuscript feedback from an editor or agent are an additional $165, and in-depth literary critiques by a seasoned writer or editor are $150. See website for details. WHAT MAKES THE CONFERENCE UNIQUE: It’s one of the largest and most inclusive writing events in the country for writers of all kinds. “NCWN prides itself on cultivating a friendly and supportive environment where the end goals are for each of us to become better…

• Keep in mind that there may be more than one workshop in each of the listings. • These workshops are listed alphabetically by state, country, or continent. • Unless otherwise indicated, rates include tuition (T) only. Sometimes the rates also include airfare (AF), some or all meals (M), accommodations (AC), ground transportation (GT), materials (MT), or fees (F). • When you find workshops that interest you, be sure to call, email, or check the website of the instructor or organization for additional information. • All listings are paid advertisements.…