Innehållsförteckning för November/December 2012 från The Writer

Where in the world is The Writer? As many of our readers know, The Writer recently moved from its longtime home in Wisconsin back to its original home in the Boston area. You can still find it in all the same places online including Facebook and Twitter, and at various conferences, fairs and festivals, such as the last September’s National Book Festival in Washington, DC, where The Writer bumped into Junot Diaz, Annie Barrows and Siobhan Vivian. Now The Writer wants to know where in the world you are reading our publication. Submit a photo of yourself with an issue of The Writer magazine to tweditorial@madavor.com. We’ll select some of the photos to run in the magazine and on Facebook. Put our free e-mail newsletter to work: Don’t forget our…

SOME MAGAZINES and journals accept unsolicited submissions of novel excerpts, but most do not. Always read writers guidelines to see what individual publications look for. Some writers find that a portion of their novel can stand alone as a complete short story and submit that. Technically, it is an excerpt, but it also functions as a complete work and fits the bill of a short story. Journals and magazines are open to this practice, and it can be a good way to build anticipation for your novel. But keep in mind: The story has to be its own entity. It cannot rely on other parts of the novel to make sense or feel satisfying and complete. Flip to the copyright page of some novels, and you’ll find acknowledgment of those…

“THE MOST USEFUL thing I’ve learned is to get out of the way when I write. By that, I mean to remove fear and ego (my agenda) from my path. To do this, I have to meditate and ask for courage and humility, because I’m always afraid, and I always think I know where the writing should go. If I can remove both these obstacles, I know the writing will take me someplace wiser, better than I had envisioned. [This approach] has not only helped my writing, but has served for the way I live my life.” Sandra Cisneros is the author of The House on Mango Street and Caramelo as well as poetry collections, short stories and children’s books. This fall, Knopf published her book for adults Have You…

We all procrastinate. Maybe we are tired, bored or just plain stuck. The trick is to make procrastination productive. Try one of these 10 ways: 1 Make a good impression. Write a thank-you note to the source who let you pick her brain for three hours, or the editor who talked you through a tricky revision. She will appreciate (and remember) the gesture. 2 Do follow-up work. Find two new markets for a rejected query and send it back out. Email polite status requests for submissions with overdue responses. Call a client about an overdue payment. 3 Do your homework. Prop up your feet and read three issues of a magazine you want to query. Make notes about style, tone, departments and the editors on the masthead. 4 Put your…

Writing effective short fiction that connects with readers is no easy task. In flash fiction – typically, fiction of 1,000 words or less – every single word serves a powerful purpose. This is the creative challenge for the storyteller. Here are five crucial elements to keep in mind when writing flash fiction. 1. Know your audience. Regardless of the genre of your flash piece, keep in mind that the same people who’ll read your 1,000-word flash aren’t necessarily the same people who’ll enjoy the most recent 1,000-page George R.R. Martin tome. Consider that a large portion of your audience may come from the “don’t have time to read” crowd. That same guy in your office who sits on the Internet all day scouring Wikipedia for factoids but who brags that…

When I was younger, I used to have vivid daydreams of a publisher accepting a book of mine before it was finished. These were good dreams, ones I nurtured, and I’m a little stunned to find myself in this situation at long last. My dreams have become reality. But it’s not as rosy as I thought it might be. Oh sure, I’m grateful that someone believes in my work, but writing my current manuscript – with the knowledge that it will definitely be published – is changing my writing process in unexpected ways. Before we highlight what I’ve learned along the way and, by extension, what you can learn from my mistakes, a little backstory is needed. How did I find myself in this situation? I’ve been putting words onto…

If Charles Dickens lived today, he might be top TV scribe David Simon. Like the masterful 19th-century novelist, Simon is a creator of sharp-eyed, social-issues drama – couched in finely nuanced characterizations and street-smart dialogue. Simon’s seminal HBO series The Wire (2002-2008), set in drug-ravaged Baltimore, rivals Dickens’ Little Dorrit and Oliver Twist for its tough take on enduring urban problems such as pervasive poverty, educational and political dysfunction, and media callousness and collusion. Simon packed all this truth-telling into a compelling crime story that showcased some of TV’s most memorable antiheroes: flawed cop Jimmy NcNulty (Dominic West), righteous perp Omar Little (Michael Kenneth Williams) and refined drug mogul Russell “Stringer” Bell (Idris Elba.) Now Simon has turned his unflinching gaze to another deeply troubled city, New Orleans, in his…

In the fall of 2010, James Rollins was asked to participate in Operation Thriller, a weeklong trip sponsored by the USO to inspire and thank troops. The group of authors included Steve Berry, Douglas Preston, David Morrell and Andy Harp who also organized the event. They visited with the troops at Walter Reed Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center. The next stops were Kuwait and Iraq. The five authors wrote a daily blog about their experiences. On Rollins’ website, he summed up the trip by saying, “In a bleak, desert environment subject to punishing heat and wind storms, the can-do feeling of our troops was amazing. [We] never heard a word of complaint about anything. Many of those encountered had been in Kuwait or Iraq for more than…

As a supplement to outlining, here are some useful questions to answer about your novel that may help you improve its structure. What is the genre? Fictional autobiography? Mystery? Futuristic? Fantasy? Steampunk? What will it be when you are finished: a slim volume or a big chunky door stopper? Who is your typical reader? Age? Gender? When you picture that typical reader, where is he or she reading, and in what format? In an airport lounge with brand new trade paperback with a dramatic cover? A library hardcover in coffee shop? A Kindle or Nook in bed at night? If someone went to a bookstore looking for a book to read, to what writer would the salesperson compare your book? “If you like so-and-so, you’re going to love [your name…

As rapidly as possible, write the final paragraph of your novel. Who is on the scene thinking about events or facing the future? Which man or woman (or bald eagle or angel) is surveying the terrain of the novel, mulling over the past, predicting the future? This is not the final action or climax. This is a brief overview, a creative summary. Where is this last character standing? What is the character thinking or doing? You may or may not choose to use this passage, but it can help you get a sense of how your novel ends.…

Lawrence Block, the bestselling author who began his career writing pulp paperbacks in the 1950s, has joined the new publishing revolution at the age of 74. And he has done so enthusiastically, providing writers with a roadmap to the future. Block is the author of more than 100 books. He has written not one but four bestselling series. He has also written numerous short stories and books on writing. He is a Grandmaster of the Mystery Writers of America and has won every award a mystery writer can win nationally and internationally: four Edgar and Shamus Awards, two Falcon Awards from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, the Nero Award, and the Philip Marlowe Award. He has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America; the…

Stephen Mooser, co-founder and president of the Society for Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, shares some highlights of the upcoming conference. Please tell us a little about the history of the SCBWI conferences and who attends the conferences. The Society for Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators sponsors more than 100 conferences around the world every year, from Seattle to Singapore. These conferences generally attract from 50-600 people. Twice a year, in Los Angeles in August, and in New York City each February, we sponsor an International SCBWI Conference. Those in attendance find programs and workshops of interest to both published authors and illustrators and to many others we call pre-published. This past August we hosted our 41st annual Los Angeles conference, and in early February we’ll be holding our 12th…

INFORMATION in this section is provided to The Writer by the individual markets and events; for more information, contact those entities directly. C = Children’s F = Fiction N = Nonfiction O = Other P = Poetry $ = Offers payment WriterMag.com Subscribers to The Writer have online access to information on 3,000+ publishers, publications, conferences, contests and agents. Go to WriterMag.com and click on Market Directory. AGENTS N F C ANDY ROSS LITERARY AGENCY Seeking literary and YA fiction, narrative nonfiction, current events, history, journalism and science. Submission guidelines online: Yes. Submit queries and materials by email only. Contact: Andy Ross Literary Agency, 767 Santa Ray Ave., Oakland, CA 94610. 510-238-8965. andyrossagency@hotmail.com. andyrossagency.com. F N THE AUGUST AGENCY Represents authors of a wide variety of mainstream fiction, creative nonfiction,…

MORE THAN 125 YEARS AGO, journalists William H. Hills and Robert Luce had a mission. They wanted to help writers think practically and expansively about their work and support the emergence and proliferation of storytelling on the page. So they did what any information-driven team of the late 19th century would do: They founded a magazine. Sounds crazy these days – with the print industry and the very trees themselves in peril. And yet, and yet. Those were the days of Buffalo Bill Cody, of new colleges sprouting up, of patents and operas and baseball games that would captivate the nation. Anything must have seemed possible. The magazine those two intrepid Boston Globe reporters founded, the magazine you are holding in your hands – or reading on your tablet or…

WHERE YOU LIVE inevitably influences you and your writing. Even if you constantly travel, it informs your outlook (think The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home by Pico Iyer). Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion highlights a portion of Toronto, close to where I used to live. The Prince Edward Viaduct, also called the Bloor Viaduct, plays an important role in the book. One of its main characters, Rowland Harris oversees the viaduct’s construction: He loved this viaduct. It was his first child as head of Public Works, much of it planned before he took over but he had bullied it through. It was Harris who envisioned that it could carry not just cars but trains on a lower trestle. It could also…

Many resources are available to writers online, but LitReactor employs a three-pronged approach: classes, peer critiques and a magazine. Industry professionals and published authors form their own curriculums for online classes on topics including youngadult books, science fiction and fantasy, and graphic novels. Jack Ketchum, author of The Girl Next Door, has led a course on horror writing, and Edgar-nominated David Corbett, author of Blood for Paradise, has taught crime fiction. Prices and course lengths vary. The peer critiques, or writers workshops, require a membership fee of $9 per month or $45 for six months. After signing up, members may submit a piece to the community of approximately 9,000 members. Before submitting additional work, new members must review other writers’ submissions. This encourages writers to give back as much as…

Writer/artist Thomine Wilson believes our attachment and dependence on technology could use a creative break. To that end, she worked with Hera Hub – a co-working space for female entrepreneurs from San Diego – to found Art West Agency’s Employee Arts Program. EAP brings artistic instructors into the corporate workplace to teach courses on subjects ranging from creative writing and screenwriting to photography and film as well as the motivational class I’m Not Creative. Wilson sent out a call for instructors using Constant Contact. “I was surprised at the caliber of teachers we got,” she says. “Ph.D.s, authors and artists.” Instructors include former Walt Disney writer/producer David Wiemers, playwright/screenwriter Joe Powers and writer/editor Elizabeth Stump. Wilson herself coauthored, with instructor Michael Sussna, the e-book Beyond the Wiring: The Search for…

I’m a late bloomer. I’ve been writing for kids for about 30 years, and I sold my first picture book in 2010. In college, my favorite class was Introduction to Children’s Literature, better known as Kiddie Lit, an elective in my elementary education curriculum at the University of Iowa back in the last century – in the 1960s. We poured over the history of children’s books and discussed folktales, fairy tales and tall tales but barely touched on recent authors or picture books. It wasn’t until I started teaching first grade in Los Angeles that I paid much attention to books for kids. I was amazed at the poetic genius and the simple beauty of picture books. A picture book is like a small gem, sparkling and shining in a…

The path to becoming a successful freelance editor is even murkier than the path to successful freelance writing. A detailed book focusing on freelance editing, compiled by Mary Embree, parts the fog through the virtue of thoroughness. Embree has written two previous books for Allworth Press, an especially pertinent publisher in the freelance journalism realm. Embree’s The Author’s Toolkit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing and Publishing Your Book tilts toward writers, and her The Birds and the Bees of Words: A Guide to the Most Common Errors in Usage, Spelling, and Grammar is useful to both writer and editors. In addition, Embree is also the founder of SPAWN: Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network, a publishing resource. Given the focus of her work, Embree surprisingly did not become a successful…

Lured by the pervasiveness of trends in publishing? That may be holding you back from writing the book your publisher wants to read. An aspiring novelist seeking advice on whether or not to submit an unfinished manuscript recently asked me: “Why waste time on a story idea if it’s not what publishers are looking for?” My advice? If you don’t have faith in what you’re writing, no one else will, either. Consider the novel The Help. It was written by a white Southern author, largely from the point of view of black domestics in the Deep South in the 1960s – a risky move, to say the least. Roughly 60 publishers turned it down before one took a chance. But Kathryn Stockett took a leap of faith. The rest is…

You may have certain expectations about writing that negatively affect your creativity. If you believe any of the following “myths,” they may be holding you back from being a fulfilled writer. By exposing these myths for what they are – falsehoods that hold us back from our own success – you can begin to craft a more positive set of rules for achieving your best work. 1 I need a room of my own. When Virginia Woolf wrote that a woman should have a room of her own and 500 pounds a year, she was referring to the ideal of a dedicated writing place and economic security to be free to spend time writing, particularly for women of her day. But most writers write and do other things, too. They…

Anachronism: Watch out for cell phones in a Regency romance. An anachronism is something out of its correct time or chronology. For maximum realism, avoid it. Grounding: Make sure you have the facts of your world straight. Is the World Trade Center still standing? What are people watching on television? How often is mail delivered? Heinleining: A technique named for science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, who was famous for slipping information into the story without calling attention to it. Info-Dump: The opposite of Heinleining. Avoid it: “Frank, as you know, you are my husband, and we have three daughters ages 12, 9 and 3. This morning our youngest, Jocelyn, who has red hair and freckles, swallowed her goldfish, Goldfinger.” If all else fails, narrate: “Jane and Frank DeVille had three daughters.”…

A combination of reasonable expectations, strong preparation and thorough programming can make one-day writing workshops comprehensive and valuable. In today’s mail, you may find a brochure about a forthcoming children’s writers conference in your area. The one-day workshop may catch your eye. Should you attend? First-page workshop Many editors say that if their attention isn’t caught on the first page of a fiction manuscript, they usually won’t read any further. This workshop will show you how to make your first page so compelling that no editor can help read on to see where the story is going. A panel of three editors from major children’s book publishers will evaluate your first pages (without identifying who wrote them) and a Q&A period will follow. Enrollment includes a 10-minute one-on-one meeting with…

Maybe the late writer Carlos Fuentes said it best: Writing is a struggle against silence. On the most difficult days, the silence can be overwhelming. The blank page just sits there. You just sit there. Nothing worth writing comes to mind. You want to lift your weary eyes from the page and let someone else figure it out. You want to know you’re not alone in the struggle to put coherent words on paper. That’s when it is time to take a break to consider this wisdom from other writers. Gumption The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea. — Thomas Mann The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof crap detector. — Ernest Hemingway At night, when…

If you were an avid reader in the 1980s and 1990s, you might have been a fan of steampunk, the subgenre of science fiction and fantasy novels featuring advanced machines and other forms of fictional technology based on the steam power of the 19th century. The stories take place in a recognizable, historical period or a fantasy world but they are based on the industrial revolution of that earlier century. Though this type of writing gained popularity just before the turn of the 21st century, Michael Moorcock, also known as the Godfather Of Steampunk, is credited with blazing the literary trail in the 1970s with novels such as The Warlord Of the Air and A Nomad Of the Time Streams. The science fiction author K.W. Jeter, however, coined the term…

Diana Abu-Jaber’s new novel Birds Of Paradise is an Indie Picks selection, a top book of the year for National Public Radio, the Washington Post and the Oregonian, and a finalist for both the Northwest Bookseller’s Award and the Chautauqua Prize. It won the 2012 Arab-American National Book Award. Her novels – Arabian Jazz, Crescent and Origin – have won awards, as has her cooking memoir The Language of Baklava. Abu-Jaber teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland and Miami. Why: At this point I think writing is second nature. I think it might have started from growing up in an extended family of storytellers. Loud storytellers. My immigrant father and his siblings were so busy shouting their stories and memories and opinions and deep thoughts…

I reland is a small isle of some 4.5 million people to the west of a larger island, England, which colonized Ireland for centuries. To say that Ireland’s long history has been troubled is an understatement. Colonization, famine, sectarian violence and emigration have sadly defined the Emerald Isle. Yet Ireland’s greatest gift to the world has long been its writers. How has this tiny nation managed to produce so many literary legends? First, Ireland loves its authors. Walk into almost any pub in Dublin, as I did recently, and you’ll see paintings of writers on the walls. Most pubs will have Ireland’s famous four Nobel Prizewinning authors, poet William Butler Yeats (who won in 1923), playwright George Bernard Shaw (1925), playwright Samuel Beckett (1969) and poet Seamus Heaney (1995). You’re…

Most fans of science fiction can quote the Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert’s classic Dune series. It goes like this: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. During many times in my life, such as the passing of my parents, this litany helped me to survive. Then one day, after receiving more rejection emails than I cared to keep track of, I altered the words of my favorite mantra to survive that moment, too. I…

I HAVE SUBSCRIBED to The Writer for about six years. What’s amazing is that I have been writing since grade school and have only recently graduated from writer to published author. It has been with your help. The articles mentored and inspired me with succinctly professional advice – how to mold your story into shape, create believable characters. I learned to “write tighter,” and it helped me pace my stories better and eliminate over-telling, as I had been told was my problem in rejection letters. Next, came the submissions. As any writer knows, writing a good story isn’t the hardest part. It’s convincing someone else that you have written a good story. I absorbed your articles again – what makes a good query letter, what makes publishers/agents cringe as opposed…

Arm your writer friends with a favorite literary quote. C Johannesen Studio creates custom leather-wrap bracelets 30-inches long, with room for 300 characters of text. Select from quotes or design your own. Choose a color, words and font. $29. cjohannesen.etsy.com. Give the sound of silence. Able Planet’s noise-canceling headphones provide your favorite writer with solitude regardless of location. Headphones come in a variety of colors with an adjustable headband and a foldable size, perfect for anyone on the go. Models range from $79.99 to $349.99. shop.ableplanet.com. Make a case for technology. Caseable, with offices located in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Berlin, creates custom cases for laptops, e-readers, smartphones and iPads using mostly recycled materials. Upload your favorite images and text onto a website ordering form. Prices range from $49.90 for an…

In certain circles, I am famous for superhuman directional inability. I may write fiction, but this is no exaggeration. For example, when I was 8-years old, I got lost walking around the block. I wandered my own neighborhood for what felt like days (and was probably at least an hour or two), completely unaware that I was passing, again and again, within yards of my own street corner. Another time, I got lost in the familiar aisles of our neighborhood grocery store. My most recent Hanukkah present from my poor, worried parents was a GPS, but I have still managed to get myself turned around, despite the friendly lady telling me which way to go. Even a global satellite system is no match for me. My point is: I am…

In my world, the words “magic” and “bookstore” clearly belong together. If you’re not sure about that, read My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read and Shop. As Richard Russo notes in his introduction, writers form lifelong attachments to bookstores, and this book is a demonstration of that devotion. More than 60 writers, including Isabel Allende, Rick Bragg, Dave Eggers, Fannie Flagg, Ian Frazier, Pico Iyer, Chuck Palahniuk, Ann Patchett, Edith Pearlman, Francine Prose, Lisa See and Lee Smith, offer love-letter essays and stories about their favorite bookstores. Complementing each chapter are delightful sketches of the bookstore by illustrator Leif Parsons. From small-town bookstores that you’ve never heard of (John Grisham writes about That Bookstore in Blytheville, Ark.,) to the well-known big-city Strand Book Store in New…

James Rollins was a veterinarian with his own practice, but behind the gloves and medical garb was a man who wanted to write. He wrote nearly three dozen short stories but couldn’t sell a single one. He wrote an adventure novel and received 50 rejections by both literary agents and publishers. One editor wrote: “This book is unpublishable.” Rollins engaged a literary agent, but the rejections continued. Thinking the adventure-thriller market might not be his destiny, Rollins decided to write a fantasy novel and submitted it to a contest sponsored by the Maui Writers Conference. He arrived at the conference without any hope and left with two book deals: one for his fantasy, and one for his adventure thriller. After writing several fantasy novels under the name James Clemens and…

Most people know about inspiration. You wouldn’t be writing a novel if you didn’t have it. Also, most people who write have some skill at editing and polishing. We’ve all heard of writers who do 15 drafts and then make corrections in the printed copies of their books. What we don’t usually hear about are the many, many ways to get from that first inspiration to the editing and polishing. I call these draft steps “layers,” and each offers a unique way to go deeper and make a book better. Some take only a few hours as you dash through the manuscript looking at one element. Some are leisurely and probably similar to your natural process of writing. Changing speed and moving farther from or closer to the manuscript will…

If you are blocked, or if the middle of your manuscript sags, you can add an object that might appear in almost any novel, and it will restart you or give you more material. Choose an object, then think of a spot where the object might reasonably appear in your novel. Describe and keep writing to see where it takes you. • A drawer • New shoes • A musical instrument • A book • An apple • A bird • A roasted bird • A feast or celebration • Someone’s hands • Someone’s feet Make your own list.…

“YOU’RE A WRITER. RIGHT?” This question is almost never really about me. This question is just a lead-in, a set up to the real question. “How do you write a book?” When you see it on the page like that, it seems so vague, so impossibly open-ended and yet I have an answer. I have a single response to the answer they’ve been hoping for: “The book you want to write is the book you’ve always wanted to read.” Every time you open a new book and start reading, there’s something you’re hoping for based on the title, the cover, the information on the jacket. From the time you start reading, you are comparing the words you read to the words you automatically imagined you would find. Sometimes you are…

As a freelancer, you’re your own boss. That means you make your own rules. For example, I created the “24- hour rule” to keep me on target when I started freelancing full-time. A rejection didn’t derail me; it just meant that I had 24 hours to do two things – resubmit my idea to another potential market, and pitch a new idea to the editor who had turned me down. As a self-employed writer, you can be more efficient short- and long-term by creating your own guidelines. “Your rules can be one of two types,” says Paul Vachon, a fulltime freelancer in Oak Park, Mich.: “Rules that involve how you relate to outside parties like editors” and “rules that determine how you run your office.” “Freelancing is a business, and…

Poet Sandy Tseng, author of Sediment, published her first poem The Bypass in Guernica. The online literary magazine attracts an international roster of authors and poets, and interviews feature Nobel Prize winners, politicians, directors and historians. Editors appreciate emerging as well as established talent. A year after The Bypass appeared online, The Nation magazine gave Sandy Tseng a Discovery Award, which showcases poets who have not yet published a book. “Guernica contributors come from dozens of countries and write in nearly as many languages,” editors write on the magazine’s website. “They include acclaimed writers … but Guernica has launched brand new voices, too.” This biweekly online magazine of art and politics, a 501(c)3 organization, publishes art, poetry and fiction. Editors also look for big ideas – pieces with a global…