Find the content you’re interested in more easily —

If eyes are windows to the soul, teeth can be a testament to your civic duty… apparently — I was at a coffee yesterday — a gathering of about twenty women in somebody’s kitchen — and as we stood around making small talk, a charming and glamorous woman told a story that started: “So, I’d sent my husband off to have his teeth whitened…” Amidst a generalized gasp…

If you publish a book, you will get bad reviews — it’s inevitable — The only way to survive as a writer is to grow a skin at least as thick as a rhino’s. How do you cultivate such a skin? …

What to do when the dreaded bog gets a firm grip on your ankles and won’t let go — I don’t tend to think of my (frequent) failures to be productive as ‘writer’s block’. Instead, I tend to think of them as ‘writer’s bog.’ You know, those times when you feel stuck, sluggish and slow, with perhaps an overwhelming desire to lie down and take a nap until dinner…

Join my online revision workshop — I’m delighted to announce that I’m now a writing instructor with the Westport Writers’ Workshop. My first online class will focus on revision. Revision is often where the magic happens in the novel-writing process–where crucial details are folded in like tiny, shining gems, where flab is cut away until the…

If you’ve read this book, you probably have a strong view — The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller is not everybody’s cup of tea. A quick survey of Goodreads reviews shows that fully a third of readers are left baffled and offended after reading it. Or bored, even. Nevertheless, tons of people are reading it. This debut has more than 200,000…

And I’m guessing you do, too — I’ve just had an illuminating conversation with my new friend, ChatGTP. For ease of reference, I’m going to name her (yes, she’s female, in my experience — something of a thin-nostrilled spinster aunt) Agnes. After shooting the breeze with Agnes for a while, and finding that she could write a…

It’s a less scientific process than you might think! — Last night I attended an event at the Darien Library where two editors from The New York Times — Gregory Cowles and Tina Jordan — discussed the venerable newspaper’s process of selecting The 10 Best Books list every year. Here’s the 2022 list as an example. The process of gathering…

Are you narrating your story in the way that serves it best? — As an editor, I find that many first-time novelists have a hard time getting a handle on point of view (POV). They launch into a story from somewhere on high, describe the setting, and then settle briefly on one character, then on another, like a hummingbird going from blossom to…