Innehållsförteckning för March 2020 från The Writer

FROM THE EDITOR During a judging period for a recent short story contest, I started thinking a lot about dialogue tags. Because in many submissions, characters didn’t “say” a thing. They shouted, they stammered, they inquired, they posited. Some characters boasted and screamed while others murmured or mumbled. But no one “said” anything. And I started wondering why. Why do we tell beginner writers to avoid creative dialogue tags in the first place? Why do we insist, over and over again, that characters should stick to “said,” “asked,” and the occasional “sighed?” And, if the advice is so oft-repeated, why are writers still unable to resist the siren call of a lament, bellow, screech, snap, or guffaw? The more I thought about it, the more I understood the temptation. We’re…

The door was locked. The Simmons public library was a melting pot of the haves and have-nots, a mixture of homeless people and the wealthy older residents of the nearby neighborhood. Loud music filled the room, making it hard to hear anything else. All prose and poetry submissions to The First Line in 2020 must begin with one of these three sentences. David LaBounty is founder and editor of this 20-year-old international literary quarterly with his wife, Robin, who coordinates manuscripts. They’re fascinated by how a mandatory first line showcases the variety of stories that emerge from a single common sentence, and how the restriction inspires creativity when writers sit down to a blank page. “I suffer from writer’s block,” he admits. “I have three projects of my own sitting…

When it comes to getting published, there are many spinning cogs. Here are some of the resources you’ll need to take your work from inside your brain to in front of the eyes of readers. The following listings are a sampling of what the industry has to offer. For a complete guide, visit writermag.com. INFORMATION in this section is provided to The Writer by the individual markets and events; for more information, contact those entities directly. F = Fiction N = Nonfiction P = Poetry C = Children’s Y = Young adult O = Other $ = Offers payment AGENTS C Y ADAMS LITERARY Represents children’s and YA authors and artists with picture books, middle grade, and YA fiction. Submit via online submission form only. Contact: Adams Literary. info@adamsliterary.com adamsliterary.com…

Writer Clare Beams received significant recognition and acclaim for her 2016 short story collection We Show What We Have Learned, including nominations for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the Shirley Jackson Award for a Single-Author Collection. With her first novel, The Illness Lesson, she demonstrates that she is equally talented at longform fiction. Set in the 1870s, this imaginative, insightful story stars a young woman named Caroline Hood, whose father, Samuel, decides to found an unusual school for girls on the same site where he once formed a failed utopian community. But when a mysterious illness plagues the students, Samuel turns to sinister Dr. Hawkins for a bizarre medical treatment (based on a real historic treatment). Beautiful, evocative prose and a thought-provoking plot make this a…

Are you ready to hit the ball out of the park in 2020? In the age of a 24/7 news cycle, grabbing significant media attention for a book can seem like an incredibly difficult task, if not downright impossible. Authors must work harder than ever before to catch a divided public’s attention – especially if they’re writing non-political content in an election year. In order to successfully, accurately publicize your book (or your brand), you need to create a roadmap; otherwise, how do you know if you’re on the right path, and how will you know when you reach key junctures in the journey? And, as every savvy author knows, it’s never too soon to start thinking about your promotion strategy – even if you’re still in the drafting process.…

Recently, my local writers guild asked to feature me in their monthly newsletter. A glutton for exposure, I said yes. I then received a list of 10 questions, two of which stood out. One was “When did you first consider yourself to be a writer?” The other was “What is your biggest time waster?” In thinking about these two questions, I realized I could answer one with the other: I knew I was a writer when I found myself sitting at my desk day after day with my forehead in my hands, staring at my lap and thinking about how I couldn’t write. My biggest time waster? My own brain, which distracts me from my writing with all sorts of negative messages, impulsive meanderings, and good old-fashioned fear. In his…

1. BIRDS, AGAIN ashwell, massachusetts, 1871 Wonders, wonders! —miles pearson, the darkening glass (p. 4) The first of the birds Caroline mistook for her own mind’s work. When the streak of red crossed the kitchen windowpane, fast, disastrous-bright, she thought it was some bloody piece come loose inside herself. Then her father appeared from the study and held the doorframe, leaning in. “Caroline! Did you see?” They found it in the yard, real after all: high in their birch tree, pecking judiciously at the bark. The size of a dove, the shape of a crow, and a brazen crimson tip to tail feathers, the shade a cardinal might bloom to if dipped in wine. It had a crestless head, all sharp planes. As the Hoods watched, it took a choosy bird-step forward, then…