Innehållsförteckning för May 2021 från The Writer

Treading custard Roughly one year into the pandemic, it seemed every member of my family and friend circle hit a wall (myself included). To some, it was our first wall. For others, our 600th. But the consensus was the same: We felt stuck. Constantly exhausted. Woefully unmotivated. Our short-term memory and cognitive focus, already on a 12-month hiatus, seemed dangerously close to taking a permanent vacation. “Everything feels like wading through custard,” said one friend, “and I’d worry about it, but everyone I know feels the same.” That one mental image – all of our brains, chucked into a vat of custard and forced to swim – has lived in my brain rent-free ever since. Making my to-do list? Backstroking through custard. Finishing a long book? Paddling upstream in custard.…

AS I jump back and forth between freelance articles and the edits for my next novel, The Weary God of Ancient Travelers, which are due at the end of this month, I’m realizing just how precarious a draft is. I wrote this novel about five years ago. I’ve done about 12 or so extensive drafts. I’ve worked on the story at workshops and done a novel-in-progress swap with other writer friends. Then, at the 11th of 11th hours, I decided that something major to both plot and character arc – something I loved when I wrote my first draft of this novel – just wasn’t working. Now, I’m forced to go through the painstaking process of adjusting this aspect of the larger story and filling in the cracks left behind…

After former sportswriter Scott Bolohan got COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, and after his position coaching high school baseball was eliminated, he turned to Ken Burns’ documentary about baseball for comfort. He thought about how the sport provides solace for so many – especially in fraught times – and decided to launch The Twin Bill, a literary journal devoted to the game. “I never guessed that by the end of the year, I would be interviewing Darryl Strawberry, whose signature was in the palm of my very first baseball glove,” he says. “We’ve just launched our third issue, and it’s been incredible to see how excited people are about what we’re doing. We want to be a place where people can celebrate baseball.” Writers don’t have to be experts…

READERS should use caution when entering into any legal contract with a literary service offering agenting-type assistance; publishers who charge, rather than pay, an author for publication; publishers who require a purchase before publication and contests that charge high entrance fees. The Writer also recommends requesting a list of references and submission guidelines before submitting a manuscript. If you have any concerns regarding the advertiser’s commitment or claims, please contact the advertiser and make certain all questions are answered to your satisfaction. ADVERTISERS We do not accept ads from agents or businesses that charge a reading or marketing fee; Subsidy Publishers: Copy of contract. In order to effectively handle questions from our readers regarding the products and services of our advertisers, the staff of The Writer asks that you provide…

Jamie Passaro became a professional obituary writer nearly a decade ago, after her mother passed away. “I wrote her obituary, and it was very stiff,” she admits. “A good obituary is a research job, a journalism job, and it should be biography and poetry. It’s such a hard project to do when you’re in the midst of grieving and taking care of details.” With those challenges in mind, she launched “dear person” to assist people in crafting creative, intimate obituaries in honor of a loved one – tributes they submit to newspapers or post online or print in memorial programs. He was known as “G.”“G” for Gerard and “G” for Gold but also “G” for genuine,“G” for giving, “G” for “You good?” the daily text he sent to those in…

1. ALL-WEATHER NOTEBOOK Inspiration strikes during inclement weather? No problem: Rite in the Rain makes slim, portable waterproof notebooks for writers on the go – and they’re budget-friendly to boot. When wet, write with a pencil, crayon, or one of Rite in the Rain’s all-weather pens. $8.94 for three, amazon.com 2. RAINY DAY READS CANDLE If your answer to a wet, dreary day is to curl up with a blanket and a book, add this candle to your cozy arsenal. It’ll soon fill your reading nook with a blend of fresh rain, ginger, and lavender. Starts at $7 for a 2-oz tin; frostbeardstudio.com 3. WATERPROOF CLASSIC LITERATURE Bibliobath offers a variety of waterproof books that will stand up to even the most torrential of downpours. Current selections include Macbeth, poetry…

Some rules are made to be broken, but in the world of writing contests, that’s not the case. Here are common elements to double check before you submit your work. You don’t want to be disqualified for a clerical error. The following contests are a sampling of what the industry has to offer. You’ll find even more listings at writermag.com, including our own short fiction contests. 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 F THE WRITER SHORT STORY CONTEST Regularly hosted by The Writer magazine. Max 2,000 words. Submit via online portal only. Deadline: Check website.…

I like to write short, but I have difficulty figuring out if I’m writing a piece of flash or a prose poem. Is there a big difference between the two? How can I tell which one I’m writing? —PROSE/POEM Dear Prose/Poem, Gigi will know, but Google will also tell you: Prose poems are poems without the line breaks. Seriously. They may carry rhyme and pacing schematics; they will also use the same elements as poetry, like metaphors and chiasmus and anaphora and other figures of speech I had to Google myself before I wrote this reply to you. The big difference is story arc: A prose poem is not required to have a story arc. A piece of flash, whether fiction or nonfiction, will have a narrative arc to it.…