Innehållsförteckning för January 2022 från The Writer

AS JANUARY APPROACHES, IT’S TIME to sit down and forge our creative goals for the coming year. And since I’ve yet to meet a writer who wants to write less in the new year, I know many of us are scheming how to get more one-on-one time with our manuscripts in 2022. But I also know vague goals to “write more” do little good without creating an actionable framework to show how exactly we’ll write more in the next 12 months. For me, this means taking the time now, as winter descends in earnest, to reflect on the year I’ve had and to dream of where I’d like to go next. It’s a perfect season to take inventory of my creative stores, to build an inspirational nest out of all…

The pandemic has not been good for my fiction. It’s been too easy, since March 2020, to knock out articles and essays for a paycheck and forgo the pleasures of novel writing in favor of making the family yet another meal or suggesting mother-daughter activities that don’t involve my teen’s smartphone. Colleagues around the world tell a similar tale, admitting to profound anxiety in this changed world, along with a lack of motivation and focus. A new year, however, brings the gift of starting fresh and honoring the writing we most want to accomplish by building the habit of putting words to paper or screen. Hoping for inspiration, I interviewed experts across the country about how best to cultivate a new writing practice or jumpstart a stalled routine. 1 Quiet…

Jan. 1 It’s a big month for the Hundred Acre Wood: Not only was A. A. Milne born on Jan. 18, but Winnie-the-Pooh also becomes public domain in the United States on the first of the year. Jan. 9 Post a letter to your favorite pen pal for the start of Universal Letter Writing Week. Jan. 11 Calling all nonfiction writers! Our annual Essay Contest opens for submissions today. Visit writermag.com/contests for more details. Jan. 12 Happy birthday to award-winning and bestselling author Haruki Murakami, who was born on this day in 1949. Jan. 14 The film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Deep Water, starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, is slated to be released. Jan. 19 Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday; nominations for the author’s namesake award, The Edgars,…

WRITING HAS BEEN AN EXHILARATing and painful journey for me, the source of my life’s highest highs and lowest lows. I have terrible doubts every day about whether I have what it takes, about whether I have enough talent, about whether I will ever write anything that is really, really good. And it’s a tough business. When you write a piece, it might get rejected dozens of times before someone accepts it. You might get rejected by dozens of agents before one will take you on. Once a publisher actually buys your book, your editor is going to look at the manuscript and want you to make changes that are sometimes massive. So, there’s more revision. After the book comes out, then you have to worry about whether the reviews…

Writer and educator Myriam Gurba may be best known for her epic takedown of Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt, a misguided work of “social justice” wherein the author, a self-described white woman, attempts to step into the shoes of a Mexican refugee. The results are unintentionally hilarious and offensive at the same time, the premise unbelievable. Gurba, who was initially commissioned to write a review of American Dirt for Ms. Magazine, eventually wrote about it, as well as her experience of being told her review was too much for Ms., for Tropics of Meta. I’ve called her because I’ve just finished reading Mean, Gurba’s wonderful memoir, and am in the middle of reading her Painting Their Portraits in Winter: Stories, a collection of short fiction. I’m keen to learn more about…

In the beginning…there’s only the opening sentence to your story, be it novel, short fiction, or even picture book. Your opening sentence is second only to your closing sentence. And a reader will never get to your closing without being invited in by your opening. The stakes are high, and it is worth spending time to find the elements that create a story beginning that will cause it to come to life. IT’S IMPORTANT RIGHT HERE, AT the outset, to suggest you not get hung up on “the perfect” opener, though. You can begin the work with a placeholder – anything, really – and move on to the second sentence. Like the first chapter in a novel, you may re-write it many times before you are ready to send the…

THE TECHNOLOGY TEENAGERS USE TO DRIVE their parents up the wall may change, but the feelings associated with growing up don’t. The most successful and relatable YA authors grasp the essential emotions of being a teen. The writers tackle wildly varied subjects, from embracing asexuality to solving decades-old mysteries to navigating a post-climate-apocalypse world. But at the base of it all, feelings drive YA literature. Getting inside a teenager’s head. “When I’m trying to tell a story, it helps me to think about my audience and what things, ideas, or issues are most relevant to them,” says Jay Coles, author of Tyler Johnson Was Here and the more recent Things We Couldn’t Say. Of course, the latest generation of YA readers is coping with something no recent generation has experienced…

TURNING A LARGE-SCALE WRITERS’ conference into a remote event has been revelatory for Lin Oliver, outgoing Executive Director of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). “I don’t think we’ll ever go back to having big conferences that are only in person,” she says. “They’ve become so much more available to everyone because they’re virtual. They’re more equitable in terms of making the same information available to everyone, regardless of what people can pay.” Every year, SCBWI holds two major conferences – a February event in New York City and a July gathering in Los Angeles. The February 2022 conference takes place virtually, and the July conference will be hybrid or remote depending on pandemic statistics. “New remote platforms are making all kinds of wonderful things available,” Oliver…

“There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.”– JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE What is fiction but a story with a point of view? On the one hand, point of view is the lens or perspective from which the story is told. On the other hand, it’s the person you use to tell the tale, whether first (“I” or “we”), second (“you”), or third (“they,” “he,” “she,” etc.) Writers seldom use the second person, so the first or the third is the usual choice. But if it’s third person, what about the omniscient? The omniscient POV was certainly popular in 19th-century novels and, to some extent, in 20th-century ones, but it’s pretty much passé today. Instead, the contemporary choice for third person is either…

Grants, Fellowships, & Awards Information in this section is provided to The Writer by the individual markets and events; for more information, contact those entities directly. These are a sampling of what the industry has to offer. For a complete listing, visit writermag.com. F = Fiction N = Nonfiction P = Poetry C = Children’s Y = Young adult O = Other F N P O American Antiquarian Society Fellowships for Creative and Performing Artists and Writers Provides fellowships for writers and journalists producing imaginative works dealing with pre-20th-century American history. Fellowship projects include historical novels, poetry, plays, screenplays, magazine or newspaper articles, and nonfiction works of history designed for general audiences. Deadline: Oct. 5. Entry fee: None. Prizes: $2,000 stipend and a four-week residence at the society, located in…

Hi Gigi, I am hoping that you might be able to help me with a question I have involving illustrations for a children’s picture book. The pictures are in pencil. They are lively and colorful. However, when I took them to a print shop to be duplicated and scanned, the results were really disappointing. Not only were the drawings “washed out” looking, but the colors were affected quite undesirably, with a yellowy cast. The printer said that this often is the case when printing artwork, so I’m thinking there must be a better way. Someone mentioned some type of photography? I am hoping that you can tell me what illustrators do to keep their work true to color when preparing it for a publisher’s viewing. Thank you, Gigi…I’m very grateful…