Innehållsförteckning för June 2020 från The Writer

*Note: All release dates were accurate as of press time; however, the current coronavirus outbreak may cause publishers to reschedule release dates as needed. NOVELS All Adults Here By Emma Straub May 4 Bestselling author Emma Straub (The Vacationers, Modern Lovers)’s latest book, a novel about the impact our mistakes and decisions may have on our children and their children, netted praise from both Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett. My Mother’s House By Francesca Momplaisir May 12 The literary thriller of the summer may very well be this debut from Francesca Momplaisir, in which a house – yes, a house – enacts vengeance upon one of its occupants, the patriarch of a family of Haitian-American immigrants who has committed unspeakable evils. The Vanishing Half By Brit Bennett June 2 In…

If you’ve been a fiction writer for any length of time, you surely have a whole list of things you’ve picked up about character development – from your reading of good fiction and books on writing, from writing colleagues, or from conferences. The three big accomplishments a fiction writer strives for are: 1) Create a complex, multi-dimensional protagonist. 2) Create a sympathetic protagonist that the reader can root for. 3) Make sure your protagonist has an arc – that is, changes in some way by the end of the story. Readers want a story, not just a portrait or a sketch. Every story has an occasion, a complication, and a central conflict, which develops as the plot unfolds. As in real life, characters struggle with problems of different kinds. What’s…

Georgia is home to one of the largest broadleaf forests in the nation, rich with maple, oak, and hickory trees. It’s also home to the Broadleaf Writers Conference. Now in its fifth year, the autumn weekend in Atlanta offers a lively and intimate gathering of editors and literary agents along with professional and emerging authors. Author and executive director Zachary Steele has attended numerous writing conferences, observing how people form relationships that last beyond the event itself. “Our board of directors works very hard to foster that sense of community at our own conference,” he explains. “We want to give attendees the inspiration and knowledge to become better writers, along with fun and effective ways to become part of a community.” This year, along with traditional pitch sessions, the Broadleaf…

Pass the time with a good book Unable to leave the house, many of us find ourselves doubling or tripling our reading time lately. You’ll find weekly book round-ups of the latest & greatest books on our website. See them all at writermag.com/blog. LAST CHANCE to enter our writing contest! Our 2020 spring short story contest ends on June 2! Submit now if you haven’t already: Your work of 2,000 words or less could win you $1,000 and publication in The Writer. Find all the details at writermag.com/contests. Insta-inspiration Are you following us on Instagram yet? Discover a daily dose of writing prompts, quotes from favorite authors, and other forms of writerly inspiration every day on our profile. Follow us today at instagram.com/thewritermag. STAY IN TOUCH Put our free e-mail…

In a class I’m teaching for Bay Path University’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction, the discussion board virtually hops with action. Even though there are only eight and nine students in each of the sections I’m teaching for this class, it’s not unusual for each discussion board to see 50 or 60 posts within five days. My students’ posts are rangy and long and deep-thinking and marked by tangents. For the first few weeks, there weren’t any restrictions placed on the posts – the students just had to post their reactions to the readings. And then I gave them a word limit: They had just 350 words to express themselves. There was a fair amount of hand-wringing. Some students just flat-out ignored the instructions and then came around in subsequent posts…

Colonel Clifford Worthy knew he had a story to tell. As one of the few African-American men accepted into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1949 – just a year after President Harry S. Truman integrated the Armed Forces – he served in the Army for over two decades while navigating racism and the challenges presented by raising his developmentally disabled son. Thirty-five years after Worthy realized his life story would have broad appeal, he published his first book – The Black Knight: An African-American Family’s Journey from West Point – A Life of Duty, Honor and Country (Front Edge, 2019). Since then, he’s been interviewed by numerous journalists, and his book has appeared in major newspapers and on PBS. He’s had signing events at Detroit’s Museum of…

I grew up with the impression that marathons were a spectator sport. The Boston Marathon ran by my doorstep, one of the three-family brownstones on Beacon Street, at approximately the 22.5-mile mark. For the old-timers of the neighborhood, “Marathon Monday” was the day to set up a beach chair and chat with neighbors. For us kids, it was a day off from school – the start of April vacation, and a chance to spend the long afternoon outside. We counted ourselves lucky if we caught the moment the elite runners, all muscle and grace, flew by. It was like spotting a shooting star – a thrill and then gone. But for us, the real marathon – the marathon worth watching – didn’t come by until later, long after the elites…

The week was off to a great start. The washing machine refused to spin, an unpaid bill for the leaky pipe in the basement lingered. Not only were checks slow to arrive, but also editors seemed indifferent to my pitches. So I wrangled an advertorial into coherency while waiting for my next story to edit. Then the country shut down. As the uncertainty mounts, you might curse your decision to become a freelance writer. You’ll wonder about why you avoided a more stable profession. I know some writers have struggled to write; I don’t blame them. The days are a jumble of vague terror and hellish headlines. It’s hard to write a pitch or file a story when a sniffle induces a Stephen King story, when the people we should…