Innehållsförteckning för July/August 2021 från Writer's Digest

Kat Chow has always been attracted to stories of loss, especially from communities of color that investigate the impact of this loss across generations. She explored such stories (and many others) as a founding member of the Code Switch team, a project of NPR that investigates identity and culture. Chow has also written about grief for The Cut and Lenny. Her debut book, Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir, which Alexander Chee calls “a daring, loving, searing debut,” is just the next manifestation of her journey to understand the intersections of grief, family, and identity. In Seeing Ghosts, Chow and her family process the untimely death of her mother. The narrator Kat continues to see an apparition of her mother into adulthood and uses these appearances to explore the haunting nature of…

I see … a tree. A big tree. A big maple tree. I see a big maple tree on a hot summer day, crowned with multitudes of brilliant green, five-pointed leaves, waving in a stirring breeze as if to beckon the couple over to its shade over the lush grass, a perfect spot for their red-and-white checkered picnic cloth… Have I brought this tree to life yet? Certainly, my fourth attempt to describe the tree is more detailed than my first attempt. But I’m not confident I’ve truly brought that tree to life for you. At first, description seems like it should be easy to master. “Describe a …” is one of the first creative writing prompts most of us encounter. However, I find description to be one of the…

Elizabeth Gonzalez James Mona at Sea (Comedic fiction, June, Santa Fe Writer’s Project) “After losing her job on Wall Street in the middle of the Great Recession, Mona Mireles must figure out what she finds meaningful in life … and then gain the courage to go after it.” WRITES FROM: Oakland, Calif. PRE-MONA: I went through my own period of unemployment during the Great Recession, and I started writing as a way to exorcize my worst feelings. When I started Mona at Sea, I’d never written anything, and drafting the novel was me teaching myself how to tell a story. I’ve had stories and essays published in The Idaho Review, The Rumpus, PANK, and elsewhere. I am also a contributor to the Ploughshares blog. TIME FRAME: I started writing [the…

Readers love a good story—that’s a given. But book lovers also enjoy the chance to learn about social and political issues. Consider the award-winning crime novel Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha, which describes racial tensions in 1990s Los Angeles in the wake of a horrific shooting. Or A Dangerous Crossing by Ausma Zehanat Khan, which surveys the Syrian refugee crisis. Or perhaps my own novel, Winter Counts, which examines the broken criminal justice system on Native American reservations by telling the story of Virgil Wounded Horse, a hired vigilante. Although the social novel has long occupied a prominent place in literature, the genre of crime fiction has become the modern locus for many authors who write about issues of social justice, both entertaining and informing readers. A compelling…

Writers want readers to care about our characters, to feel for them, to invest emotionally long enough to follow their journey for several hundred pages. Evoking emotion in our readers means demonstrating emotion in our characters in every scene. Characters with complex, realistic emotional nuances, who change over time, are those the reader will feel the most invested in. So how do you demonstrate character emotion in every scene? We let our characters do the emoting through a series of behavioral cues. An additional bonus to letting your characters show their emotions is that you avoid relying on expository, explanatory phrases that don’t allow readers access to these characters’ inner lives. If you simply say, “He felt betrayed,” while that may be accurate to the character’s experience, as a reader,…

Dear FYSA, Help! I just got my first edit back from my publisher, and I’m in a flop-sweat panic. Not only is there markup EVERYWHERE—my editor also asked me for a structural revision that I hate. Didn’t they buy my book in the first place?? Does my prose suck? Do I have to restructure my third act? What do I dooooo? Sincerely, Made My Own Beditor Hello, Beditor! Several years ago, in the dead of winter, some friends and I snow-shoed from Northern Minnesota into Ontario, Canada. For me, it was, at the time, the accumulation of a lifelong dream—to this day, I do not have the words to describe the way the cold smelled—and the night we finally made it to the lodge, I was fairly exploding with this…

I would estimate, conservatively, that two insightful peer criticisms I received in my workshop course last fall saved me two to three months of wrestling with the novel manuscript I plan to use as my MFA thesis. Without external feedback (and not for lack of trying), it takes me about a month between writing and revising to come to clear-minded conclusions about the state of a draft on my own. Two to three months is a lot of acceleration for the relatively short amount of time it takes to write a feedback letter. That level of progress was only possible, however, because all the writers involved were conscientious about their role in creating and maintaining a respectful and supportive feedback-giving environment. Writing well and giving good feedback are two different…

1 John R. Milton Writers’ Conference For its 12 th biennial event, the 2021 conference theme, “Prospecting: Uncovering New Veins and Voices in Identity, Genre, and Place” will explore important issues of place, form, and representation. The theme refers to the search for new avenues of expression for authors and will address these and other overlapping concerns. WHEN: September 16–18, 2021. WHERE: The University of South Dakota, Vermillion, S.D. PRICE: $60. Meals and shuttle services are available for additional fees. WHAT MAKES THIS CONFERENCE UNIQUE: The event focuses on the craft, peda-gogy, and study of writing. Their keynote and featured reader events are open to the public. HOW MANY ATTEND: 500–1,000. FACULTY: The keynote presenter is Mary Gaitskill. Featured authors include: Duncan B. Barlow, Pete Dexter, Steven Dunn, Brandon Hobson, Leah McCormack,…

A Deeper Mark I have been excited about this issue since July of 2020 when the editorial staff sat down to discuss themes for the coming year. We settled on a dual theme: The Bravery Issue with a secondary theme of Writing for Change. The two seemed so connected to us—it shouldn’t take courage to write about the things that are important to you, but often those are the topics that take the most courage. After all, they’re the ones closest to your heart, the issues that most affect your life, and what you’re most invested in. And sometimes, it just takes courage to sit down and write in the face of naysayers and potential rejection. But as we sorted through the pitches, it became clear that the “Writing for…

Seismic shifts occur in the life of every writer. Whether external or internal, these changes influence a writer’s craft and can lead to a driftlessness, a wandering on the page. So how does one refocus on writing, especially when trauma hits? I faced this question at age 39 when a brain aneurysm rupture sent me by air ambulance to a neurological ICU where I underwent emergency brain surgery. My writing life—along with my professional and personal life—came to a screeching halt. For me, traumatic brain injury was the seismic shift, including a shift of perspective in how I approached the written word. Initially, I felt like I couldn’t trust my brain. After all, it had given me no warning signs in the days prior to my medical emergency. And if…

I am an activist, an environmentalist, a teacher, professor, and a mentor … but first, I am a listener. I listened to my parents, my soul, the earth, and the people of my community. Real activism starts with listening. Listening can also help one write about social justice. I am from Lowndes County, Ala., a place that has been called “Bloody Lowndes” because of its violent, racist history. Once the epicenter of the voting rights struggle, it has become Ground Zero for a new movement that is my life’s work. It is a fight to ensure basic human dignity through a right most Americans take for granted: basic sanitation. Too many people, especially the rural poor, lack an affordable means of disposing cleanly of the waste from their toilets and,…

Let’s face it, books are judged by their covers. Consciously or not, readers will associate the quality of your book’s cover with the quality of the story and editing. That means the cover itself is a marketing tool. So how do you set yourself up for success? For indie authors without an in-house marketing and design team behind them, there are three options: making your own cover, buying one pre-made, or getting a custom design. In each case, great book covers start with a clear understanding of the genre, market trends, and audience. Most of this work should have been done before you sat down to write. Going indie allows more freedom and flexibility in terms of blending or bending genres and audiences, but it doesn’t mean throwing out the…

A friend of mine is the marketing director of a California winery. One day, she called to ask if I’d be willing to help create brands and write labels for the bottles. “Why me?” “We’re seeing a trend toward consumers wanting stories,” she said. “They like to read a little narrative about the wine on the back of the bottle. Fun or intense—but it has to be gripping. Edgy.” Never one to shrink from a unique challenge, I said, “Sure, I’ll give it a go.” “The edgier, the better.” I came up with a decidedly risqué brand name for a red blend and wrote a miniature drama for the label, involving cravings, danger, and charisma. I sent it to my friend. She called again. “This is too edgy.” At that…

In a world desperately in need of change, you have an opportunity now to write a book that inspires personal, organizational, or global transformation. However, a well-crafted manuscript may not be enough to motivate your readers toward internal or external change. To author the change you want to see in the world, you can write a novel, a memoir, a parable, a biography, or a prescriptive nonfiction book. Historically, though, nonfiction has offered a powerful vehicle for change. With that in mind, consider the types of books that motivated you to change, started movements, or reached millions of readers. You may be experienced in one genre, like fiction, and feel inclined to write a change-inspiring novel. Before you begin writing, consider stretching your writing skills by switching genres so your…

For this column, I chose to speak to an editor at Condé Nast’s WIRED because it focuses on the transformative effect of technology on people’s lives (and who isn’t touched by the constant lure of our cellphones)? I also cover what not to pitch. My Estelle’s Edge (aka pro tip) is don’t pose a bunch of random questions for the editor without answering them. For example, in the rejected pitch (#3), it says, “…how do you keep the story and soul of a movie like District 9 or The Thing intact when adapting it into a table-top game as compared to a video game or novel?” And the writer follows it with two other questions that he doesn’t answer either. Alan Henry is the service editor for WIRED and he…

Is screenwriting a new venture for you and you’re not sure you want to do it alone? Maybe you’ve written a few scripts but feel they’re missing panache. Or do you want to dive into a new genre but would feel more comfortable if you had a partner? If any of the above sounds like you, you’ve likely been ruminating about finding a writing partner. A writing partner is a person who will collaborate with you, sharing all responsibilities from idea conception, research, outlining, writing, and re-writing to selling your screenplay. Writing partnerships differ from writing groups and critique partners, which tend to be feedback based or for moral support. A writing partner is essentially a co-author. There are more pros than cons in having a writing partner, but it…

Now that the end of the pandemic is in sight, we were wondering what you’re most looking forward to as it relates to your writing. After conducting an informal poll via social media, some of the goals we heard were simple, while others were more grandiose. The important thing to note is that we can all anticipate something as our world gets back on track. 1. Going to a coffee shop to write—while again wearing lipstick!2. Shaking hands with or hugging those whose work means so much to us.3. Meeting/interviewing new people who share the love of reading and writing.4. Although hybrid conferences may be the wave of the future, many reported missing the in-person aspect of symposiums and other meetings—noting that the energy of virtual events is just not…

THE CHANGE MAKERS Writing, whether in books, pamphlets, newspapers, or poems has long been a way to advocate for change or draw attention to important social issues. Here’s a timeline featuring just a few which have been meaningful to us from the past 500 years.…

CATHERINE COLEMAN FLOWERS is an internationally recognized environmental activist, MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, and author. She was appointed Vice Chair to the Biden Administration’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, Flowers has spent her career advocating for equal access to clean water, air, sanitation, and soil in marginalized rural communities to reduce health and economic disparities. She serves as rural development manager for the Equal Justice Initiative, is a senior fellow for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, and sits on the board of directors for the Climate Reality Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council. As the author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, Flowers shares her inspiring story of advocacy, from childhood to…

POETIC FORM: TRENTA-SEI The trenta-sei is a 36-line form created by poet and translator John Ciardi. In fact, trenta-sei is Italian for 36. Here are the basic guidelines: • Six sestets (or six-line stanzas)• Each sestet has the following rhyme scheme: ababcc• Each line in the first stanza makes the first line in its corresponding stanza (so line one is the first line in the first stanza; line two is the first line in the second stanza; and so on) Robert Lee Brewer is senior editor of WD and the author of Smash Poetry Journal. Here is an example by a Poetic Asides reader: “Attention” by Jane Shlensky “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”—Simone Weil I’m easy now to entertain my isolation rich with light from brightest…

FUSE LITERARY “Ima former journalist, avid gamer, full-time nerd, who reads a lot,” says Tricia Skinner, literary agent “I’m at Fuse Literary. Raised in Detroit, Skinner attended the Journalism Institute for Media Diversity at Wayne State University and then earned her graduate degree at Southern Methodist University. Her work as a newspaper reporter has appeared in The Detroit News, Investor’s Business Daily, MSN, and the Houston Chronicle. She also has 20 years of experience working in the video game industry. Represented by Fuse Literary co-founder Laurie McLean, Skinner is the author of several fantasy books. Skinner considers McLean a mentor. “Her best advice for me was to pay attention to the emotions I get when reading a manuscript,” Skinner says. “They’ll tell me I’ve found something special.” What led Skinner…

I joined the WD team after working in nonfiction book publishing for about six years. I was used to getting book proposals and kept myself blissfully away from the magazine side of the brand I was working on. But when I joined WD, where the magazine and books were not only intertwined, but the books were sometimes about making magazines, I was suddenly hit with three terms that seemed interchangeable: pitch, query, and proposal. First there was confusion and then, the moment of enlightenment: They’re similar, but not the same, and belong to those collections of terms that industry folks use so often, it can be easy to forget there are always going to be people hearing them for the first time. The basic difference is this: PITCH: A request…

I write while walking a tightrope. Figuratively speaking, of course. What I mean to say is that I’m something of a humorist who writes about religion, specifically Islam. It is a high-wire act. My work requires seeking balance, hoping for grace and a healthy respect for the gravity of my situation. It also requires—and I apologize because I’m not sure how to say this without sounding egotistical—courage, and that is my subject today. I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about the importance of being brave when you are a writer, and why that is a necessary quality that every author must cultivate. Before we start, I feel like I should point out a couple of things. First, I am going to be referring here primarily my own work.…

Last February, at a virtual event put on by my alma mater, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, I listened to four Black journalists from venues like The New York Times and Washington Post share their insight and experiences on the intersection of race and reporting in 2021. As a white freelancer who focuses primarily on travel writing, if you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have said this panel wasn’t really relevant to me. After all, I don’t typically cover politics or policy in my work. But I’ve begun to understand, as have many writers and editors of late (though still not enough), how issues of race permeate every area of journalistic coverage. And that the “race beat” emerging in many major newsrooms—or, to speak more clearly, the…

It’s natural for freelance writers to aim big and pitch national magazines. After all, national magazines are the ones that everyone has heard of from New York to Seattle, but there are many opportunities closer to home in regional magazines. Many cities have a regional magazine and some even have more than one. Then, there are magazines devoted to states. It doesn’t take long for the opportunities to multiply. However, don’t let their proximity fool you. Regional magazines pay well—sometimes better than the national publications—and they expect high-quality work from their freelancers. If you bring your A-game, regional magazines can provide the perfect opportunity to get an assignment and a byline. As with any market, be sure to read recent issues to lock down their house style and voice while…

• Keep in mind that there may be more than one workshop in each of the listings.• These workshops are listed alpha-betically by state, country, or continent.• Unless otherwise indicated, rates include tuition (T) only. Sometimes the rates also include airfare (AF), some or all meals (M), accommodations (AC), ground transportation (GT), materials (MT), or fees (F).• When you find workshops that interest you, be sure to call, email, or check the website of the instructor or organization for additional information.• All listings are paid advertisements. CALIFORNIA ANNUAL GREATER LOS ANGELES WRITERS CONFERENCE, produced by West Coast Writers Conferences August 6–8, 2021 at the new Hilton Westside Los Angeles if in person, or in the virtual realm August 6–14. Writers of all genres and disciplines benefit from this popular educational and…