Articles by Kathryn Olsen

Don’t Fear The Reaper (or How to Kill your Darlings)

For some people, there are few things as scary as a minimum word count requirement; for others, they dread length guidelines. I, myself, fall into the latter category. My current novel clocked in at 110,000 words. I was relieved when an acquisitions editor asked me to flesh that out. Unfortunately, she didn’t mention until a…
Issue One Hundred Sixteen Success Stories

Ten Tips for a Succesful NaNoWriMo

I assume that if you’re reading this, you have intentions to write something for National Novel Writing Month. Congratulations! I wish I were joining you this year, but I’m starting a new job, skipping the country and trying to get a manuscript edit finished in the next few weeks.  Now that you’ve made this momentous…
Issue Twenty Nine Special Feature

The Pros and Cons of NaNoWriMo

T.S. Eliot claims in “The Wasteland” that “April is the cruelest month.”  As a Red Sox fan, I put October (namely, play-offs season) ahead of April.  As a writer, I think that November can top them all. Welcome to my rundown of the pros and cons of the month affectionately known as NaNoWriMo.  It is…
Issue Twenty Eight Special Feature

How to Name the Voices in Your Head

I come from a family of four kids with a Danish-Norwegian patronymic surname.  From oldest to youngest, our first/middle name combinations are of the following origins: French/Hebrew, Greek/Greek, Roman/English and English/English.  Our parents’ names are English.  My five nephews have names ranging from Greek to Irish.  The moral of this story is that not all…
Issue Two Hundred Thirty Two Special Feature

What Gail Carson Levine Taught Me About Writing

During my years as a student at Brigham Young University, I occasionally volunteered with the annual speculative fiction symposium—Life, the Universe and Everything. As a committee member, I would help with registration, judge the writing competition and hand out nametags. One year, we ran into an problem: Gail Carson Levine didn’t have anyone who could…
Issue Twenty Special Feature Writing Prompt