Published: A Craft Guide

Some friends of mine over at Kelp Journal got together and wrote Published: A Craft Guide, a series of essays by current and former Kelp Journal editors on crafting fiction submissions that stand out. Edited by Kelp Journal managing editor A.E. Santana, Published offers essays on topics including structure, point of view, dialogue, characters, suspense, voice, genre, and living with … Read More

Woman sitting cozy on her bed in a sweater and socks, with her tablet, a mug of milk, and cookies.

Writing from Prompts

A half dozen Christmases ago, my daughter Melissa gave me a book called 642 Things to Write About. At the time, I had never used writing prompts, except once during a dark November when I was seriously stuck and in danger of falling far short of my NaNoWriMo word count. The prompt I used then … Read More

The Reading Writer

Here in no particular order are five of my favorite books on the writing craft and the writing life: Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern I love the structure of this book, as well as its wisdom. The book is organized into four sections which are fairly self-explanatory: The Shape of Fiction. This section is … Read More