Special Feature

9 Famous Authors Who Didn’t Get Published Until Their Fifties (Or Older)

Often people tell me they are too old to become a writer. Sometimes these people are in their thirties or forties, sometimes they are in their fifties and sixties. But the fact remains the same, no matter how old you are, you are not to0 old to become a writer. Many authors started writing later…
Issue Two Hundred Thirty Five Special Feature

Eight Free Writing Contests With Cash Prizes

By S. Kalekar This is a list of writing competitions with upcoming deadlines that award cash prizes – for short fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and for various ages, genres and eligibility criteria. All are free to enter. Bodley Head/Financial Times Essay Prize 2016 The essay should be dynamic, authoritative and lively, and could address any…
issue One Hundred Ninety One Special Feature

Anthologies: How to Boost Your Writing Credentials

By K.N. Johnson “Oh, you’re a writer! Have you published a book?” For some writers, this question is easy to answer. Their Amazon or Goodreads author page confirms their writerly status with a list of traditionally or self-published books. For those still working on a first book, admitting we’re not yet published can feel like…
Issue One Hundred Ninety Six Special Feature

7 Ways To Stay Motivated In Your Writing

By Kelli Fitzpatrick A former student recently emailed me asking how I stay motivated to write. As a full-time teacher, I am under a constant barrage of demands on my attention, but writing is too important to let slip. The following are my best pieces of advice for keeping your eyes on the prize. Create…
Issue One Hundred Ninety Special Feature

Our Eleven Most Popular Articles of 2016

Of the many articles we published on writing and publishing this year, the following eleven were our most popular in the magazine and on Facebook. They also had the most positive feedback in terms of emails and comments. It is interesting to see the range of ideas these articles cover within the realm of writing….
Issue One Hundred Eighty Eight Special Feature

10 Tips for Staying Active When Your Work Is Sedentary

Written By Jean Knight Pace For most of my married life, my primary job was to be an at-home mother. I played with my kids and managed our household, working on my writing at night and in the quiet crevices of my days. My first novel, Grey Stone, was written like this. And then, last…
Issue One Hundred Eighty Seven Special Feature

The Truth About Copyright

I am not a copyright lawyer. I would never claim to be. But I am a writer, a writer whose work has been published widely, so I have figured out a thing or two about how copyright does and does not work. This article focuses mainly on copyright in terms of literary journals, but it…
Issue One Hundred Eighty Six Special Feature

Query Etiquette: Lessons I’ve Learned From Literary Agents

Sixteen years ago I received a request for a full manuscript from UK literary agent Laetitia Rutherford. The manuscript was my first serious complete work of literary fiction and I was blinded by excitement. Ms. Rutherford was kind enough to send me line edits on the entire manuscript. She even called me from the UK…
Issue One Hundred Ninety One Issue One Hundred Ninety Two

My Editor’s Top 5 Tips On How To Improve A Manuscript

Every writer dreams of becoming better with each new book. How exactly do we achieve perfection when some writers, like me, are prone to repeating certain errors? One of my favorite editors advised me to compile a list of all the comments, corrections and errors that were highlighted during editing processes and compile a list…
Issue One Hundred Eighty Four Special Feature

How to Write a Compelling Short Story

Written By Stephanie Norman Have you ever wondered what makes people so impressed by short stories? There is something magical about the ability of an author to capture so much wisdom in so few words. The sentences are magnetic. The reader may spend less than an hour with the story, but the effect will last…
Issue One Hundred Eighty Three Special Feature

4 Ways to Fund Your Self Published Novel

By Elizabeth Wangare  Publishing should be the next step after writing your book, but is it?  Many manuscripts have found their abode underneath beds and in drawers due to different constraints. Chief of these is lack of funds; whether actual or imaginary. Imaginary because some publishers have basic publishing option for about $78; even with…
Issue One Hundred Eighty Nine Special Feature

How to Write a Story that Gets Published

Writing a book or even a story isn’t easy if you can’t explain it in a few words to your readers, your fans, your prospective publishers or editors. Writing isn’t just about being inspired by an event and describing imagined circumstances leading up to that particular point in time. Detailed planning is required. Ideally a…
Issue One Hundred Eighty Two Special Feature

How to Make Time for Focused Writing

“All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.” ― Neil Gaiman Time for writing doesn’t make itself. This might seem like a ridiculously obvious statement, yet it is a trap writers fall into all the time, myself included. If you have a good writing habit…
Issue One Hundred Eighty One Special Feature

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

Writing Is My Job.

Written by Jen Jones Every writer, at some point in their career, has heard the words, “Writing isn’t a real job.”  Only another writer can truly understand the frustration of hearing those words and being made to feel as if your dream is only a waste of time.  It can be even worse if someone…
Issue One Hundred Seventy Seven Special Feature

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