July/August 2013 Issue
July/August Issue
Writer's Digest Magazine
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Website of the Week
Writing Editor Blogs
Guide to Literary Agents Blog
by Chuck Sambuchino
GLA Editor Chuck Sambuchino keeps track of all news related to literary agents and writing conferences on his blog. Common features include agent interviews, new agency listings, agency profiles, upcoming conferences of interest, contests and other publishing opportunities, valuable writing resources, submission tips and information, and a blogroll of other agent blogs. Read Chuck’s Blog
There Are No Rulesby the editors of Writer’s Digest
Get on the cutting edge of today’s publishing trends and how authors can succeed in a world of fast-paced technological change, guided by the editors of Writer’s Digest. You’ll get an inside look at the work, play, and passion of the publishing business and find practical tools for success. Read There Are No Rules
Questions & Quandariesby Brian Klems
Don’t know the difference between “who” and “whom”? Facing an ethical dilemma about accepting gifts from subjects? Let the informative (and humorous) columnist Brian A. Klems answer some of your most pressing grammatical, ethical, business and writing-related questions. Check out his advice and don’t hesitate to ask a question—your writing career will thank you. Read Brian’s Blog
Poetic Asidesby Robert Brewer
Published poet Robert Lee Brewer blogs on issues affecting poets from the poet’s perspective. As the editor of Writer’s Market, Brewer also shares insights on the publishing industry, especially as it relates to poetry and the poetry markets. He also explains poetic forms, interviews other published poets, and provides the occasional poetry prompt. Read Robert’s Blog
New Literary Agent Alert: Marisa Cleveland of The Seymour Agency
She is seeking: Marisa is accepting queries for middle grade fiction. Need more details? She is searching for a middle school novel she can’t put down until the last page and can’t stop discussing. Voice is definitely key for her. If she’s going to sign (and sell) someone or recommend someone, then the writer’s voice has to speak to her. She has to be able to listen (vocally and on the page) to that writer through revisions and edits and book after book. She wants to find characters she’d want as her best friends and partners in crime long after the story ends, whether it’s in this world or an alternate universe… and middle grade means the content where issues are age-appropriate and not based solely on lexile levels. Read more
Debut Author Interview: Miriam Forster, Author of the Young Adult Novel, CITY OF A THOUSAND DOLLS
Meet author Miriam Forster. Miriam’s debut novel is young adult story, CITY OF A THOUSAND DOLLS (Feb. 2012, HarperTeen). Miriam sat down with Guide to Literary Agents to discuss how she came to sign with her agent, Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Literary, and how DOLLS came to be published.
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said of the book: “Set in a magically isolated Empire, Forster’s well-crafted story and confident prose are rich, packed with small details that immerse readers in her sumptuously imagined world.” Author Miriam Forster wrote her first story at seven and has been playing with words ever since. She is obsessed with anthropology, British television, and stories of all kinds.
GIVEAWAY: Miriam is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Update: CC Dowling won.) Read more
Literary Agent Interview: Kimberley Cameron of Kimberley Cameron & Associates
She is seeking: literary and commercial fiction, science fiction, women’s fiction, historical fiction, mystery, horror and thrillers. For nonfiction, she accepts biography, memoir, food & lifestyle, science, technology, medical, health & fitness, how-to, religion & spirituality, dating & relationships, pop culture, entertainment, travel, history and military. Read more
How to Write While Managing a Full-Time Job: 5 Ways to Maximize Your Time
2. Take advantage of small moments. Let’s be realistic. If you work a full-time job and have any kind of life, sometimes small moments are all you’re going to get out of a day. If you’re in the doctor’s office (okay, that may be a large moment), or waiting for your kid to finish his/her oboe lesson, or chilling during halftime of your NFL team’s latest victory, you have time to write. Remember: It’s like eating an elephant. Case in point: I’m writing this in the lobby of the high school where my son is trying out for the mid-state orchestra. Read more
Bug-Out Bags for Writers
As we all know from watching shows like Doomsday Preppers, you’ve got to be ready to get out of dodge fast if things hit the fan. So what should a writer have … Read more
How to Bring Subjects to Life in Your Nonfiction Writing
When you write nonfiction characters, you have to be vigilant and observant (this leads to good fiction writing, as well). People consist, for other people, of four things:
1.what they look like
2. where they are
3. what they say
4. and what they do.
Ask any actor. It’s all about: costume; setting; dialogue, and movement or action. It’s also about “business,” as actors call it. Business is the daily buzz and thrum of a person’s activity, the little things a character does: picks up a bottle, drums a finger, turns on a light, fiddles with the phone, slides her shoe on and off. Read more
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Results
Wow! So everyone brought their A-game for this chapbook challenge. Previous challenges have provided plenty of quality manuscripts, but this year was just insanely crowded with talent–some written by familiar names, others … Read more
Writer’s Digest Announces New Self-Publishing Conference
New One-Day Event Focuses on the Art and Business of Savvy Self-Publishing NEW YORK – February 12, 2013 – As options for self-publishing increase, barriers to becoming a published author have become … Read more
7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Elizabeth Richards
4. Buy lots of swag. You’re going to need it! Bloggers, readers, bookstores, other authors, book groups, librarians and schools will all want some, so you better make sure you’ve got plenty to go around. If you want to keep costs low (and I do!), I highly recommend you just order bookmarks, as they’re cheap to produce, they look awesome, and they don’t cost an arm and a leg to mail (and trust me, it all adds up, especially if you’re posting internationally).
GIVEAWAY: Elizabeth is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Update: Rebecca Harwell won.) Read more
Agent Mary Kole Teaches “Picture Book Craft Intensive for Selling in Today’s Market” — Feb. 21, 2013 Webinar
If you are writing and/or illustrating picture books for kids, then this updated webinar with literary agent Mary Kole is for you. This updated webinar (one of our most popular of all time!) teaches writers winning practices for composing books, explains how to pitch your work to agents/editors, and reveals where many submissions go wrong. Mary will also devote a portion of this session to answering attendees’ candid questions in a Town Hall-style format! The event happens at 1 p.m. EST, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013, and lasts 90 minutes. Read more
Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 210
Tomorrow is V-Day, so there’ll be plenty of chocolates, kissing, fighting, and lonely hearts out there as a result. For today’s prompt, I’ve actually got two options: Write a valentine poem. Write … Read more
Originality Isn’t Everything: Write What You Know
My Tips: 1. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about what you enjoy writing. 2. If what you love is genre, learn more. Study the origins, read criticism, read books about it. 3. Take the pressure off, and just practice. You don’t always have to be original.
I don’t say that I write what I know, but I do say that I write what I feel, I write what I think is beautiful, and I write what I enjoy. And so should you. Read more
Debut Author Interview: Laurie Boyle Crompton, Author of BLAZE
I love introducing my blog readers to the debut author of today. I believe that showing them the paths of those writers who have found success recently is an excellent way to provide roadmaps to those looking to follow in their footsteps. Examine what people did right — and learn from them! Today’s debut author interview is with Laurie Boyle Crompton about her young adult novel, BLAZE (OR LOVE IN THE TIME OF SUPERVILLAINS), out Feb. 2013 from Sourcebooks Fire. Read more
Writing Gender-Specific Dialogue
Writing dialogue to suit the gender of your characters is important in any genre, but it becomes even more essential in romance writing. In a romance novel, characters of opposite sexes are … Read more
5 Ways to Revise Poems
My blog spends a lot of time on the creation of poetry, but I haven’t dedicated anything to revision in more than a year. While I’m always writing and revising poetry, I … Read more
How I Got My Agent: Joanne Bischoff
Well I suppose it’s worth a shot. As a new author with a series in hand, I knew I was going to need an agent. I queried about 15 agencies for my Appalachian romance and one of those agencies was MacGregor Literary. They were definitely at the top of my wish list, but they mainly worked with established authors. I really didn’t qualify there, but hey, it was worth a shot. Read more
New Literary Agent Alert: Steve Kasdin of Curtis Brown Ltd.
He is seeking: “The most important thing I’ve learned in over twenty years in publishing is also the simplest: plot sells. And the definition of what makes a great plot is also very simple: interesting, well-drawn characters thrown into unpredictable situations. I’m looking for: commercial fiction, including Mysteries/Thrillers, Romantic Suspense (emphasis on the suspense), and Historical Fiction); Narrative Nonfiction, including Biography, History and Current Affairs; and Young Adult Fiction, particularly if it has adult crossover appeal. I am NOT interested in SF/Fantasy, Memoirs, Vampires and writers trying to capitalize on trends.” Read more
Interview: Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, Author of THE HEARTBEAT AT YOUR FEET
Meet Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, a canine psychologist and the author of The Heartbeat at Your Feet: A Practical, Compassionate New Way to Train Your Dog. Lisa is the director and principal of The International School of Canine Psychology, training dog owners and prospective dog psychologists in science-based compassionate methods. She is the founder of The Dog Helpline, which offers distance advice to dog owners and rescue shelters around the world.
GIVEAWAY: Lisa is excited to give away a free copy of her book to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Update: vrundell won.) Read more
Harnessing Mythic Power in Your Writing: The Storytelling Masters and Their Lessons
The word adventure a student once told me after she’d studied the word’s etymology, means something that is about to happen to someone. I’ve never forgotten that definition because it means that anyone of us anywhere can experience extraordinary things. Our oldest storytellers understood this, a truth as ancient as Anglo Saxon scops singing for an audience in the meal hall, but your own call to adventure happens when you pick up the pen and hazard the blank page. Read more
“Perfect Your Query Pitch” — Feb. 14, 2013 Webinar All About Constructing a Dynamite Pitch
When you want to sell your book, you’ll need to send agents and editors a great query letter to pique their interest in your work. And the most important part of the query letter is the pitch — where you describe your novel or memoir’s story. To explain more about how to craft a dynamite pitch and get agents & editors to say YES, we’ve listed “The Book Doctors” Arielle Eckstut & David Henry Sterry to teach “The Art of The Pitch: Perfect Your Number One Tool to Attracting Agents, Publishers, and Readers.” The webinar lasts 90 minutes and happens at 1 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. Read more
Writing Effective Grief In Fiction: 5 Ideas For Writers
Grief alone is not enough to make a novel. It can be the backdrop, sometimes the obstacle, but novels must be flavored with other focuses, obstacles, and emotions in order to draw in their readers. Here are 5 ways to use grief more effectively in fiction: 1. Make Them Care. When starting to write your book about a character’s loss, you may be tempted to dive right into their grief on page one, thinking that this is your inciting incident…
GIVEAWAY: Denise is giving away the e-book for free on the 3 days of Feb. 8-10. Read more
7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Dana Bate
1. The book chooses the writer. Write the book you are meant to write – not the book you think you should write or the one you think your friends expect you to write, but the one buried inside you, begging to come out. Don’t worry that your best friend or parents don’t read racy thrillers or chick lit or whatever it is that comes out when you start pouring words onto the page. Once you embrace the concept that the book chooses the writer, and not the other way around, the writing comes a lot more easily. Read more
Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 209
For this week’s prompt, write a poem somehow influenced by an animal. The animal could be the title of the poem, the subject of the poem, a bit part in the poem. … Read more
Literary Agent Interview: Michelle Johnson of Inklings Literary Agency
This interview features Michelle L. Johnson of Inklings Literary Agency. She is a literary agent, the founder of Inklings Literary Agency (formerly of the Corvisiero Literary Agency), and she has a business administration background in addition to a lifetime of working with books (sales, editing, and writing) and authors (marketing, promoting, event planning). She is also a script/story consultant for an independent film under production in Halifax, NS.
She is seeking: contemporary, steamy romance, suspense, thriller, mystery, horror, fantasy, paranormal and supernatural elements in adult, new adult and young adult fiction. Her nonfiction interests include memoir and true crime. Read more
Marathon Training to Finish Your Book
Let’s Start Training. The bulk of marathon training consists of longer runs interspersed with rest and recovery days. Your writing schedule should follow the same premise: A few short writing stints, followed with a longer write on Saturday or Sunday (your Long Writing Day, or LWD). A good beginning might be 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and two hours on your LWD. Use this time to refine your voice and familiarize yourself with characters and motives. You may feel “sore” after these sessions, but no matter: You’re building up your writing muscles. Read more
