The Ploughshares Round-Down: Labels, Action, and Confidence
A couple weeks ago, author and marketer Ryan Holiday wrote a piece for Thought Catalog titled, “Can You Call Yourself a Writer?” In it, he argues that “[j]ust because you have done something, doesn’t mean you are something.” In other words, calling yourself a writer when the craft is a mere hobby
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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,
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
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