Lit GIFs: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A brief case study of a guy who turns into another guy…and stresses out his lawyer. This is Dr. Jekyll. He sometimes turns into Mr. Hyde.
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How To Fall in Literary Agent Love
In my last post, I shared with you the checklist I used to put together my own book proposal. It contained all the building blocks I’d become familiar with when working as an editorial assistant for an academic book publisher, plus a few other tips I’d picked up over the years from former writing professors and…
Writer Nightmares
You give a reading and only one person shows up. It is your ex. You spend five years working on a novel about Marie Antoinette’s wigmaker. The day you finish your final revisions, Margaret Atwood publishes a novel about Marie Antoinette’s wigmaker. Remember that guy whose poem you destroyed in your sophomore writing seminar? The…
YA vs MFA
I’m not a rule-breaker. I like order and organization (lord help you if you try to cut in front of me in the burrito line). And generally I don’t go looking for trouble. Except when it comes to writing YA. I was in my second year of my MFA program at Emerson College when I…
The Ploughshares Round-Down: How To Screw Up A Book Proposal
When I first start working on a proposal or a manuscript with a writer, I tell them I have two stages of advice: breaking things and fixing things. At first, I’m going to keep asking hard questions and recommending big changes, until I think the writer has said what that writer wanted to say. Once we’ve gotten all…
Huizache: The Biggest Little Secret in Texas
As far as literary journal subscriptions go, I only maintain three. I’m one of those writers, and for my sins I mostly miss the great early pieces of writers I come to love years later. This is especially true of new Latina/o writers, who I think most people miss for various reasons, not least of…
Episodia 2.7: Gilmore Girls & The From-Aways
CJ Hauser’s evocative debut novel The From-Aways will take you deep inside small-town New England, a budding friendship, and troubled family ties. It’s a whip-smart and heartfelt book. It also shares some common ground with the fan-favorite television series Gilmore Girls, and below CJ and I discuss the show, as well as her novel, the…
For Today I Am a Boy
For Today I Am a Boy Kim Fu Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2014 256 pages $23.00 Buy: book | ebook Kim Fu opens her touching debut novel with a birth on the concrete floor of a butcher shop. This story is one that’s been passed down through the Huang family, though it may not be…
Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunch
If you live in a smaller city and you have even a speck of success as a writer, chances are at some point you’ll be tapped for what I call “The Ladies Who Lunch Literati.” Sometimes they might be fans of your work; in my case they are often people who my mother puts in…