Keith Pyeatt is an engineer turned novelist who writes paranormal thrillers with a psychological twist that he calls “horror with heart.” Living for ten years in an isolated cabin in Vermont may have influenced his choice of genre,
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Preparation, Poison and Pitfalls: A Follow Up to NaNoWriMo
by Bentley Clark
Since writing the article “Are You Ready to Write a Novel in November?” regarding National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), much—or, as you will read, little—has happened.
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Making the Most of Writing Markets
by Chris Eboch
You’ve heard about the enormous slush piles at publishing houses. And no doubt you’ve heard what’s in those piles—90 percent inappropriate submissions. These can be outrageous mistakes, such as sending fiction to a publisher that only does nonfiction,
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What Writing Books Don’t Tell You
by Kirt Hickman
I do a lot of critiques, and I see similar mistakes in submission after submission. Eventually, I began to realize that the problems I see most often are those that I didn’t learn from writing books.
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An Interview with Author Irene Blea
Dr. Irene Blea is a native New Mexican with a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado-Boulder and is the author of three novels, seven university text books, four poetry chapbooks, and over thirty academic articles. She developed and taught Mexican American Studies for twenty-seven years before retiring in 1998.
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Two-Minute Tax Warning
by Fred A. Aiken
The two-minute warning in football signals that the time to make the winning play is quickly running out. Consider this your Two-Minute Warning for tax purposes. If you want to deduct your writing expenses from your 2015 income,
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Quite the Character
by Olive Balla
According to author, editor, and writing consultant Jeff Gerke there are two kinds of writers—I call them Plotters and Character-philes. No, this has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with how our brains are wired.
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The Writing Life: Building Strengths and Outsourcing Weaknesses
by Sherri Burr
What happens to you when you realize you aren’t good at something that would be helpful to you in your career? This question was recently posed by the website TransitioningYourLife.com in the article “
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An Interview with Author Robert D. Kidera
After a short stint in the film industry and a long (nearly forty-year) career as a teacher, Robert Kidera finally did what he’d always wanted to do—write fiction. He is an active member of Sisters in Crime,
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On Writer’s Block and Cannibalism
by Bentley Clark
On a few occasions, I have joked in this column that I suffer from creative constipation. I now admit that I jinxed myself. Writing this month’s article has been like pulling teeth from a sloth—sure,
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