Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2024 i Writer's Digest

The Artist I worked in the arts and sometimes, it’s great to work in the arts. There are perks. You get to be creative. There are flexible hours. Sometimes, you get free stuff. But, there’s a downside too. Everyone is curious about the arts. You can’t just say, “I’m a greeting card designer,” and not expect a follow-up question. People want to know more. I don’t know for sure, but I assume from the excited expressions on people’s faces that they envision my rather ordinary corporate existence as some sort of Willy Wonka–esque world where cartoon characters crack jokes at the watercooler and people skip down the rainbow hallways with paintbrushes in their hair. There is nothing I can say to these people that won’t disappoint them. Nobody says, “Oh,…

People often ask at book signings how I choose what to write about. Well, the truth is that I don’t choose. I get chosen by a subject or a character or a story with such emotional force, that I’m not able to write anything else. The last two novels I’ve written, The Presence of Absence and Sipsworth, were both inspired by my relationship with animals, and it’s certainly true that while I was working on them, there was no other story I was remotely interested in, or perhaps even capable of, telling. It all started after I read an essay by John Berger about mice. It was very short, just a few pages, but it made me think about these tiny animals in a completely new way. The next week,…

Writers have scribbled on everything from a napkin to an app on their phone, but if you’re looking for a way to help organize your thoughts, here are two software programs to try. I made the switch to Scrivener after another word processing software crashed and lost 60 pages of a manuscript I worked on. I found writer Anne Rainbow’s website, ScrivenerVirgin.com, to be especially helpful for any issues I encountered. I recently discovered Campfire Pro through an author on TikTok who showed how she set up a novel using the program. I spoke with Rainbow and Jackson Dickert from Campfire Pro about how writers can use the tools in both programs to their advantage. WHY ONE WRITER ADORES SCRIVENER First developed by Keith Blount in 2006 in England, Scrivener…

Madeleine Cravens Pleasure Principle (Poetry, June, Scribner) “Pleasure Principle is a series of lyric poems that look at intimate relationships, family history, and urban environments, written from the perspective of a queer woman living in New York.” WRITES FROM: I wrote most of the book in Brooklyn. I currently live in Oakland, Calif. PRE-PLEASURE: I moved back home to New York in late 2019, when I was 23, after several years away. The city went into lockdown a few months later. I became sort of fixated with the strange, horrifying emptiness of public spaces I had known since childhood. Without crowds, the city’s architecture became so clear. So, that was the place I began to write from, in my head, running around Prospect Park, or walking across the Manhattan Bridge, trying…

The most important lesson I ever learned as a writer didn’t come from a writing book, conference, or a wise mentor. It came from sitting in an airport Arrivals section, studying people. I was picking my wife up from a girls’ trip. A maintenance issue with the jet bridge caused a long delay in her getting off the plane. I shifted in an uncomfortable plastic chair, watching weary travelers descending an escalator while ’80s one-hit wonders played from speakers overhead. Whenever someone rode down the escalator, my heart leaped, hoping it was my wife. But each time, it was a stranger looking nervously down at the crowd, scanning for their loved ones. I decided to play a game. As each person reached the bottom of the escalator and reunited with…

I am an unabashed, die-hard fan of the now-concluded FX TV show “Atlanta.” For four seasons, I tuned in to watch the adventures of Alfred (aka “Paper Boi”), Earn, and Darius, mainly because I love strange stories, particularly shows that are slightly off-kilter, like “Twin Peaks.” In fact, Donald Glover, the creator of “Atlanta,” once described his show as “‘Twin Peaks’ with rappers.” I have, at times, found myself obsessing over what I perceived to be surrealism on the show, only to question if it was more magical realism than surrealism, then wondering if there was a real difference that extended beyond academic semantics—at least on a practical level. Of course, this level of analysis could very well have been its own “Atlanta” episode, if the show was still running.…

Nearly all memoirists encounter challenges with remembering events and emotions from years or even decades ago. Long-term memory is notoriously slippery and fickle, and much of it is stored in our subconscious rather than conscious minds. By spending quiet time in nature and tuning into each sense, memoirists can more easily tap into autobiographical memories. When we walk into a park or onto a beach, our subconscious is comparing it with every park or beach we’ve ever visited, priming us to remember those experiences. Those memories can prompt others. The conscious mind processes between three and 50 bits of information per second. The subconscious mind, by contrast, can absorb and retain 11 million bits of information per second. It retains pretty much everything we’ve ever experienced. We know so much…

I won’t lie—cults are one of my special interests. When I was hired to edit textbooks for pharmaceutical students, I would happily listen to hours and hours of the podcast “Cults,” learning about everything from doomsday preppers to obscure religious sects to people who felt like they were communicating with Martians. There’s something about the insidious nature of these groups and the way they’re able to draw people in and control them that hooks me every time. While cults are fascinating from a psychological perspective, they are also an interesting focal point for storytellers. Whether you’re intrigued by classic horror stories like Anthony Shaffer and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man or “Children of the Corn” by Stephen King or more humorous works like It’s Not a Cult by Lauren Danhof…

WRITER’S GUIDELINES FOR THE SALT LICK REVIEW READING PERIOD: One week only. Your submission must arrive at our offices no earlier than 20 December, and no later than 27 December. Envelopes received at any other time will be spat upon and returned unopened. Yes, that brief window includes Christmas Day, when there is no mail delivery. Plan accordingly. FORMAT: You must send a copy of your manuscript in a separate Priority Mail container to each of our six readers. Format details—far too complex to describe here—and the names of the six readers can be purchased for $50 at our online store. A SASE for reply only must be included with your submission. It must be size 10. If the envelope is too small to contain our exquisitely crafted rejection slip,…

Some of my earliest and most vivid memories have to do with nature: catching (and releasing) tadpoles and bullfrogs in the neighbor’s creek, swinging from a vine across another creek in my grandparents’ backyard while trying to avoid garter snakes, and the classic—falling into the lake at 3 years old when I should’ve been learning how to use my Snoopy fishing pole (thanks for the save, Dad). I remember running down trails at the nearby state park with our family dog, Sadie, nipping at my heels and staying out as long as I was allowed on warm summer nights, catching lighting bugs in cupped hands with my sister in our yard. Even now, as I write this, I’m sitting on the porch swing with the wind swirling white petals from…

What does it mean to lead a literary life amidst ongoing ecocide? Sometimes, you start writing a book without realizing it. My book started off as a lyric essay, a long prose poem of doubtful quality and uncertain subject that I put together for a graduate workshop in creative writing. I knew Miami was going to get rocked by climate change. I’d written about it journalistically. But what could I do about this unrelenting feeling of dread? The workshop was taught by Maureen Seaton, a surrealist who wrote beautiful poems the way some people eat potato chips. Maureen had this luminous ability to turn her class into a sandbox where writers could safely experiment. She died in 2023. (I miss you, Maureen.) The lyric essay turned into a longform narrative…

Climate change is one of those topics that can throw novelists—and everyone else—into a fearful and cowering silence. When the earth is losing its familiar shapes and consolations, changing drastically and in unpredictable ways beneath our feet, how can we summon our creative resources to engage in the imaginative world-building required to write a novel that takes on these threats in compelling ways? And how to avoid writing fiction that addresses irreversible climate change without letting our prose get too preachy, overly prescriptive, saturated with despair? If there is any comfort to be had here, perhaps it lies in the number of novels written over the last several decades that have taken on this immensely challenging subject from such a wide variety of creative angles. Books like Octavia Butler’s Parable…

Over coffee recently, a friend described a harrowing moment when, as she was cleaning her canary’s cage, the bird escaped. The cat leaped. My friend screamed. Her 3-year-old daughter screamed. The bird did not survive. “Well,” said my friend as she gazed pensively out the café window, “that’s what I get for having a food chain in my house.” The story got me thinking about the fact that a family is, for all purposes practical and symbolic, an ecosystem. As writers, our first reference point for drama is usually a family. “Mom and Dad are yelling again.” “Yeah? What about?” “I dunno. She said, ‘Why don’t you go to her, then?’” “Really? Who’s ‘her’?” “Maybe it’s Mrs. Perry down the street.” “Really? Why?” “I dunno. I just think it is.”…

One of my favorite things to do each year is choosing the winner of the Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards. In 2023, there were more than 900 entries covering a range of forms, subjects, issues, and themes. In the end, I selected Calloway Song’s “Songs of Gideon” for the First Place Prize of $1,000, publication in Writer’s Digest, and a 20–minute consultation with yours truly. Calloway Song is a writer and poet from the Bay Area who is pursuing a BA in linguistics from Duke University. For me, his poem “Songs of Gideon” feels like an earnest attempt to wrestle with the paradox of trying to reason one’s way to faith. The slashes help break up ideas and language and force me to consider each separately and together. As with many…

It’s only natural that we cover nature magazines this time around. The target audience for these magazines can vary from people who appreciate looking at the natural world to those who are committed to protecting it. Since many of these magazines prominently feature images, a writer with great photography skills can really improve their stock in this category. However, many writers make their way with words alone by discussing plants, animals, geologic features, waterways, and more. Here are five nature magazines to get you started. BIRDS & BLOOMS  (BirdsAndBlooms.com) Launched in 1995, Birds & Blooms is a bimonthly magazine focused on the “beauty in your own backyard.” As the title suggests, the stories and images in this magazine celebrate birds and flowers. The editors say, “Our magazine covers a wide…

MARIO ALEJANDRO ARIZA is an investigative reporter, a Dominican immigrant, and author of Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe (Bold Type Books). His byline has appeared in publications including The Sun Sentinel, The New Republic, and NPR. A two-part series he co-reported with NPR and fellow Floodlight reporter Miranda Green was chosen as a finalist for the 2023 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and won the Los Angeles Press Club’s award on misinformation. A story from the series won first place for the 2024 Southern Environmental Law Center’s Reed Award for reporting on the environment. His essays have been featured in The Believer and selected for Best American Essays. He lives in South Florida with his cat, his dog, and a sturdy pair of waterproof boots. SARAH…

5 TIPS FOR WRITING NATURE POEMS While people and culture change over time, there are a few poetry topics that I think will always be incredibly popular with new and experienced poets: observation poems, confession poems, love poems (which are often themselves confession poems), and nature poems. Nature poems include those written about birds, trees, waterways, insects, flowers, gardens, dirt, the moon, and so much more. Chances are pretty good that if you’ve read or written much poetry, you’ve interacted with a nature poem and seen it up close in its natural habitat. That said, since nature poems are so ubiquitous in the world of poetry, they’re easy to write in a way that’s been done and re-done before. This isn’t a bad thing, but here are five tips for…

Oil and Dust, Graphite and Turbulence, Charcoal and Smoke (Fantasy, Kitsune Publishing, LLC.) WHY INDIE PUBLISH? In a word, curiosity. I wanted to see if I could do it on my own. The decision to indie publish my books was like opening a door into an unknown world. It gave me the chance to immerse myself in the lifecycle of a book. For Oil and Dust, I worked with three separate editors and a proofreader. … I dove into the complicated world of book production. This included cover art, copywriting, interior design, and typesetting. Then there were decisions like trim size. The grade, color and weight of paper. Which distribution networks to use? What pricing is appropriate? There are so many moving pieces! The journey to craft, produce, and publish…

I grew up in Toronto, lived in the U.K. for six years, and now confuse my family with the Briticisms I’ve picked up,” says Molly Ketcheson (she/her), a new literary agent at Wolfson Literary Agency (WLA). “I spend most of my time with my nose in a book and believe life is only worth it if you laugh at least once a day.” Ketcheson earned an undergraduate degree from the University of St Andrews and an MA in creative writing and publishing from City, University of London. Before joining WLA in 2024, she interned at several publishing companies where she “gained a keen understanding of the international publishing landscape and a love for joyful and impactful fiction,” she says. She is drawn to books with “a unique premise, lyrical prose,…

Creating consistent characters is one of the main—and most important—jobs of writing. If a character acts in ways that feel incongruous with how the author has developed and presented them, their behavior often feels jarring and erratic, and can undermine the reader’s investment and a story’s impact. Human nature can be complex and opaque, but even our seemingly irregular actions are almost always based in reason, even if not in logic. We may not know what’s prompting it, and nor may those around us, but something is causing our behavior. It does not exist in a vacuum. What may seem to be a person acting against their nature is usually simply someone doing something for which we, and sometimes even they, don’t yet understand their motivations. The author’s job is…

Many, many years ago my wife, The Duchess, wanted to get a dog. I’d never had a dog, and my concept of dog ownership was limited to the knowledge that dogs needed to be walked, and The Duchess, being fancy, was never going to do the dogwalking.1 I pictured myself out in the midst of a blizzard picking up dog poop while she lounged at home in front of a raging fire, probably drinking brandy or something. So, I advocated for a cat instead: I’d had a cat as a child, a marshmallow-esque tabby inexplicably named Missy who was so low-maintenance it’s possible I imagined her. So, once again, I thought I’d outsmarted my wife.2 We adopted a sickly tuxedo cat we named Pierre. Not long after, The Duchess turned…

Steven Rowley’s novels are intimately epic—stories about people who are thrown into the deep end of life’s defining moments. Where there is love, there is loss, and with it, the unifying power of grief. In a word, Rowley writes about change, and while change is something many of us fear, it’s the very place he finds a way to infuse both comedy and sincerity. “Even though I’m often writing about grief, I try to find the humor in the situation,” he says. It’s that signature blend of heart and humor that resonates with readers and critics alike. In 2023 alone, Rowley won the 22nd Thurber Prize for American Humor for The Guncle, and his novel The Celebrants was a Read With Jenna book club selection with Jenna Bush Hager, as…

Some athletes make great broadcasters; many do not. The challenge with nonfiction is that it isn’t just about your writing fundamentals, but also about how well you communicate your knowledge of the book-selling game. You need to be great in the booth. For science-related nonfiction, the fundamentals that should be evident in your sample chapter(s) include strong research and persuasive writing skills, a distaste for jargon, ease with storytelling techniques borrowed from fiction, and undeniable subject matter expertise. But if you want to receive an advance-bearing book deal—and that doesn’t need to be everyone’s goal, but it is an agent’s goal—your query and proposal should demonstrate a deep understanding of the commercial potential of your book. That involves three big M’s. Message Generating book coverage in a fractured media landscape…

Time for a quick quiz: What do all of these popular stories have in common? The Little Mermaid (a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, several film renditions, and inspiration for numerous retellings such as Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon, in which a young mermaid leaves the sea and lands in a prince’s court) • Elf (the Christmas film starring Will Ferrell, in which Buddy the Elf discovers he’s actually human and leaves the North Pole to go to New York City to meet his father)• Legally Blonde (film starring Reese Witherspoon, in which a ditzy sorority girl goes to Harvard Law School)• Outlander (popular novel and series by Diana Gabaldon, in which a World War II nurse time-travels to 18th–century Scotland; inspiration for television series and even a musical)• The Hitchhiker’s…

In this edition of Frontlist/Backlist, we’ll be looking at the first two books in a series by Robert Justice. As such, the order will be reversed (Backlist/Frontlist), but I’ll be sure to avoid any spoilers. Backlist They Can’t Take Your Name by Robert Justice (Crooked Lane Books, Crime fiction, December 2021) SYNOPSIS: Liza Brown’s father, Langston, is on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. The lives of the Brown family are destroyed one Monday morning in the early 1980s when they see a news report in the Denver Post about the Mother’s Day Massacre—a murder-robbery at the bank where Langston is a security guard. After the initial suspect, another security guard, is acquitted on technicalities, the town needs to hold someone to account. And, since it was an…