Articles by Caitlin Jans

Retreats, Conferences, and Week-Long Workshops: Which One is Right for You?

For a long time I wrote in the solitude of my room, alone and without a community. Slowly over time I started to branch out. I attended classes, workshops, and then retreats and conferences. I also earned a Masters of Fine Arts.  I think it is fair to say I have experienced a lot of…
Special Issue

How Poets Make a Living

At a garden party in Brooklyn years ago, someone stopped me, and asked me what I did. At the time I was in a Master’s of Fine Art program focusing on Poetry, I would graduate that spring with an MFA in Poetry. So I told the stranger that and he aksed “how do a poets…
Issue Two Hundred Twenty Special Feature

Ten Famous Authors Whose Work Was Initially Rejected

One of the ways I comfort myself when I face yet another rejection letter is to think about the “loads” of rejection letters J.K. Rowling received while she was attempting to publish Harry Potter. I also think of the five years Agatha Christie spent trying to get her first novel published.  I have not spent…
Issue Two Hundred Thirteen Special Feature

Eleven Ways to Boost Your Creativity

If you have writer’s block, this list should be extremely helpful. If you don’t have writer’s block, this list should be extremely helpful. If you don’t believe in writer’s block this list should be extremely helpful. I am a big believer in this quote by Pablo Picasso: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you…
Special Issue

How To Evaluate A Publisher for Your Book

When you’re finally ready to submit your book for publication, it can be overwhelming. There are so many publishers out there. There is so much information about some of them and so little about others. How can you check the legitimacy of a publisher if you don’t know much about the industry? Even if a…
Special Issue

How to Get an Agent for Your Book

Most of the big 5 traditional publishers work with literary agents for most of their imprints. The same goes for some smaller presses. There are still wonderful publishers to submit to if you are going without an agent, but then your manuscript has to go through the dreaded slush pile. There are lots of arguments…
Special Issue

How to Read Like A Published Writer

I was a reader long before I was a writer. As a child I fell in love with books like The Balloon Tree, A Wrinkle in Time and Ramona Quimby, Age 8.  That love of books has never left me. When I was a teenager I remember being shocked by the fact that most of…
Issue Two Hundred Thirty Five Special Feature

The Three Habits of Successful Writers

Many writers have one or two of the following habits, but it is very rare to find writers that do all three of these things regularly, unless you are looking at a shelf at a bookstore or library. Almost all of the authors whose work is on that shelf, at some point in their life…
Special Issue

How To Plot A Novel

I often said that writers are of two types. There is the architect, which is one type. The architect, as if designing a building, lays out the entire novel at a time. He knows how many rooms there will be or what a roof will be made of or how high it will be, or…
Issue One Hundred Eighty Five Special Feature

The Six Month Novel Writing Plan

Most authors have heard of National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. It is a novel writing challenge where participants try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Many famous authors, including John Green Rainbow Rowell have participated. But for many writers that work full time writing a novel in…
Special Issue

How To Support The Literary Community

Here at Authors Publish we take a strong stance against submission fees. It is part of our guiding principles. Last summer published an article called The Shame List.  This article was about presses who only read submissions for a fee. Now poetry presses have charged poets for a long time and you can read why…
Issue Two Hundred Special Feature

Three Common Submission Mistakes

I have been a contest reader, a magazine editor, a literary journal editor, and an e-book editor. In that time I have rejected thousands of poems, articles, short stories, and a couple hundred book manuscripts. In this time I have also accepted a small number of exceptional work. This of course is nothing compared to…
Issue One Hundred Twenty One Special Feature

The Importance of Writing Challenges

Someone told me about NaNoWriMo for the first time when I was 19. I had never heard of a writing challenge before, but the idea of there being a National Novel Writing Month, where writers attempted to complete a manuscript in just one month, was very exciting to me. I really liked the idea of…
Issue Seventy-Eight Special Feature

The 10 Best Writing Quotes

Over the last 2 years I have made over 3,000 literary quote memes, including the one featured above. This means that I have spent many hours seeking quotes out, reading them, and re-reading them. I now like to think that I can spot a fake quote a mile away, although this is not always the…
Issue Seventy-Three Special Feature

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