Writing a story based on a prompt stretches your  muscles, can help dig you out of a slump, can set you on fire. Playing with words and ideas, simply jumping in and experiementing sends messages to your subconscious that you’re endlessly creative. It nourishes the alchemy of writing. Try your hand at creating an essay, […]

Writing that, because of its elegance or verve, commands not only attention but a place in the reader’s memory. Writing that, because of its unique approach to subject matter, brings an emotional melding with the reader. Resonance is responsiveness. Resonance is communion. Resonance brings a writer/reader atonement—a harmony intellectually, or emotionally, or both. Peter Jacobi […]

When I was in college one of the ways I passed my most difficult classes was to construct cheat sheets. Now, this didn’t mean that I’d sneak the pages into the exam, but rather that I’d list the most important ideas and concepts in my own handwriting to press them into memory. With that in […]

In January 2002 I started emailing a newsletter to students I’d taught over the years. I never suspected I’d continue for 14 more years.  It was my way of keeping in touch and sharing thoughts, ideas, and suggestions about the writing life. But in 2016 the local internet provider I used abruptly went out of […]

Contents: What Editor’s Notice Top Eleven Reasons Why Manuscripts are Rejected Tips for Staying Out of the Rejection Pile Tips for Fiction Writers Tips for Nonfiction Writers Common Fiction Errors Top Drawer Tools: Synopsis 1. What Editor’s Notice © Jessica P. Morrell Editors and agents are word people, most were English majors in college and […]

Writing as Practice Writing becomes an act of compassion toward life, the life we so often refuse to see because if we look too closely or feel too deeply, there may no end of our suffering. But words empower us, move us beyond our suffering and set us free.~ Terry Tempest Williams  Archeologists have postulated […]

Contents: Christi Corbett Arthur Plotnik is in the House The Remarkable Cheryl Strayed The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch Emily Whitman Christi Corbett I’ve been following Christi Corbett’s track to success for a few years now. We first met her when her debut historical romance Along the Way Home was but a dream. Now her […]