Innehållsförteckning för December 2016 från The Writer

I knew I’d start writing for a living straight out of college. I imagined I’d wake each day – never before 7 a.m., mind you – and pad out to my home office in my silken pajamas. Perhaps a motivational songbird would flutter in and land on my shoulder; perhaps a pair of well-meaning mice would fetch my coffee. The words would pour from my fingers, settling just so on the page with nary a need for revision. I’d finish by noon, and my editors would fall at my feet: Such prose! they’d cry. Such wit! Such wisdom! Why, of course we’ll send a writer of your caliber to Mallorca! To Crete! Tokyo! George Clooney’s dressing room! Never-ever would I hear a harsh word about my work. Never-ever would I…

—Allison Futterman is a freelance writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. CAREER CHOPS Will a creative writing education increase my chances of publication? The debate over whether an MA, MFA, or PhD in creative writing will better your chances of success in the world of publishing or simply leave you saddled with debt shows no sign of abating. With over 20,000 students applying to study creative writing in U.S. universities at a revenue of $200 million*, there is little doubt that the higher education of writing is big business. But will it benefit you? The short answer, as ever, is: It depends. If your ultimate goal is to have a career in professional writing or to teach at a college level and you have the means, then it’s a sound…

I know a couple of $100,000-per-year freelance writers, and here’s what they don’t want you to know: none of them – save perhaps one! – is probably that much of a better writer than you. So why do they all make big bucks while others end up with peanuts? One way or another, these guys have figured out success-making strategies like the following – and they stick to them. The new year is just around the corner, so give these steps a go and see if you don’t bring in a higher income next year. 1 Dump the starving writer mentality. Just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you should starve. If a high-voltage cable inspector averages $65,000/year, why shouldn’t a hard-working, serious freelance writer make at least that much?…

We held our “Lesson Learned” short story contest over the summer; much of our early fall was spent pouring over the resulting entries. We asked readers to pen a story about characters at the brink of change – and about to learn a lesson they’ll never forget. The stories our readers submitted were truly exemplary. Although we could only pick three winners, we ended up giving out more personalized feedback to our writers than in any other contest – a trend we hope to continue in our future contests. Many stories impressed us, several moved us, and a few kept us awake long into the night, but one haunting story in particular stood out long after we’d finished reading. Jim Lewis’ “Leviathan,” with its chilling first-person-plural POV, skillful economy of…

My writing process often involves a lot of note taking, every day jotting down thoughts and ideas and in the evening putting the scraps away for later perusal, and eventually, there are enough pieces that a whole begins to come into view. I think we all are like those old antennae contraptions that used to perch on rooftops, turning and turning to pick up signals in hopes of making a connection and finding clarity. The pieces that led me to Life After Life began accumulating long before I was ready to write it. The first being when my dad died twenty years ago; I wrote how strange it was that I was able to sit and pay bills and feed my children and do all sorts of everyday tasks in…

When I met my first students 41 years ago, I knew zip about how to teach; I really shouldn’t have been hired. At the beginning, I told my class of high-schoolers to “go home and write.” This proved to be about as helpful as asking a toddler to bake a chocolate soufflé. Then, on a whim, I gave them all the same prompt. This produced valuable results. They asked for more prompts, exercises that highlighted specific elements of fiction. So the first lesson I learned as a teacher was that when you tackle a new skill, you want and need structure. This is just like practicing doing scales when mastering a musical instrument: It’s not fun, but it helps get you there. Strong, fresh writing means taking 26 letters and…

UCR Low-Residency MFA Our Philosophy When the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside was founded, it was with the simple guiding philosophy that we would provide a real-world emphasis on publication and production. What that means in a tangible sense is easy: we teach our students about the real world, about where their work fits on the shelf, on the stage, and on the screen. And then we put each student to the test: each of our graduates has his or her work read by top agents and managers, New York and independent publishers, major motion picture studio producers and development executives, and industry professionals. Within the last five years, over 75% of our graduates have gone onto sell,…

EDITOR’S NOTE: Why a piece on plagiarism? Surely every writer knows not to plagiarize. But, readers, take it from an editor: It happens more often than you think. Our staff has seen nearly every mistake listed here, and not always by newbies. The mistake may be innocent enough, but you’ll still be blacklisted. Take Gail’s words to heart – it’s not worth risking your career over a silly mistake. You’ve seen the headlines: “Staff Writer Fired Over Plagiarism.” You’ve heard of writers’ reputations forever muddied because their initially well-received work contained other writers’ lines, unquoted and unacknowledged. You wonder: What were they thinking? While occasional unscrupulous writers risk everything by claiming others’ work as their own, plagiarizing is the last thing on most of our minds. Sure, we enjoy seeing…

Cathy Pickens, author of the Southern Fried Mysteries, is one impressive woman. She practiced law, put herself through school working as a church organist, and was a competitive ballroom dancer. For 30 years, she taught graduate students at Queens University’s McColl School of Business, where she was a tenured professor with an endowed chair. (There, students knew her not by her pen name but her real name, Cathy Anderson.) Pickens recognized that many of her pupils had creative interests, “but as business students, they hadn’t been encouraged to develop or use their creative side.” Since Pickens is a “doer” – a get-it-done type of person – she decided to develop an elective class on creativity. It was an enormous hit from the beginning. Pickens went on to conduct creativity workshops…

NEW ENGLAND BENNINGTON COLLEGE Degree type: Low-residency MFA in writing. Concentrations: Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Contact: Bennington College, One College Drive, Bennington, VT 05201. 802-442-5401. writing@bennington.edu bennington.edu/MFAWriting BOSTON UNIVERSITY Degree type: MFA in creative writing. MFA in playwriting also available. Concentrations: Fiction and poetry. Contact: Creative Writing Program, 236 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215. 617-353-2510. crwr@bu.edu bu.edu/creativewriting BROWN UNIVERSITY Degree type: MFA in literary arts. Concentrations: Fiction, poetry, electronic writing (hypertext) and mixed media. Contact: Literary Arts, Brown University, Box 1923, 68.5 Brown St., Providence, RI 02912. 401-863-3260. writing@brown.edu brown.edu/academics/literary-arts EMERSON COLLEGE Degree type: MFA in creative writing; MA in publishing and writing. Concentrations: Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Contact: Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116. Pablo Medina, 617-824-8750. pablo_medina@emerson.edu emerson.edu GODDARD COLLEGE Degree…

Growing up, Daniel Palmer knew that his home life was different from other kids. His father was Michael Palmer, the New York Times bestselling author of numerous medical thrillers. “Perhaps the biggest difference in my house from non-writerly homes was the dinner conversation. We’d talk about what would make for an exciting death scene, or how the protagonist might escape the clutches of some villain, or possible plot twists. I knew what a ‘McGuffin’ was before I could divide fractions. We were always talking story, and my dad never dismissed my ideas or those of my brother even though were just kids,” he says. “Despite all that writer talk, I never thought about becoming a writer myself. Maybe that’s because my dad was eager to share all facets of the…

Writers have varied reasons for working with a co-author. Perhaps you have a slam-dunk idea for a self-help volume but lack experience with the topic. Maybe your friend or acquaintance has a stellar story but little to no writing chops. Or perhaps you just work better in a team. In the last decade, I’ve published four solo books and four with three different partners. It’s been an enjoyable ride, and I’ve found many benefits to writing as a duo. I don’t have to shoulder the load of creating, editing, and promoting the book alone. Often, another set of eyes makes the finished product much better, contributing further creativity and depth to the work. Pam Farrell has worked with a co-author on many of her 45 titles. She notes, “Books that…

For years now, I’ve been wanting to make a T-shirt that reads, “Be the writer your editor thinks you are.” I’ve been fortunate to have smart, insightful editors in my life who offer candid feedback on my manuscript drafts and inspire me to delve more deeply into subject matter and craft. Without their guidance and their passion for story, I’d be a lesser writer for sure. I’ve learned that book editors aren’t out to get you. They’re looking to fall in love with a story – and then help the author make it the best it can possibly be. For this article, I spoke by phone with several book editors across the country to offer readers a sense of their particular interests, their process of working with authors, and their…

Jill McCorkle has spent over 30 years teaching the craft of writing. Her work has taken her to some of the finest institutions of learning. She’s taught at Harvard, Brandeis, and Tufts, among others. After spending many years in the Boston area, she returned to her home state of North Carolina and taught at North Carolina State University until last year. McCorkle now teaches in Bennington College’s low-residency MFA program, which she was part of when it first started. “I love it, and I get a little bit of New England, which is nice,” she says of the Vermont-based program. She finds that teaching has been invaluable to her as a writer. “I think a classroom or workshop of interested students keeps you on your toes,” she says. “The ongoing…