June Stevens Westerfield A few months ago the lovely Laura Drake emailed me and said “I’ve got this book coming up, what do you think of the cover I am designing for it?” Ooh, tricky thing here. You see, if you ask me my opinion on something, I will give it. Even if it’s negative. […]

Tasha Seegmiller At a recent conference, I attended a class taught by Ally Condie where she went over the nuances of setting in story. As someone who strives to make my settings rich, and even feel like another character, it was something I was very interested in. While there were many concepts that she discussed […]

Christina Delay I recently watched a talk about the drive to survive; how every organism (including us) on the planet has this most basic force driving all decision-making. It is always on the lookout for danger AND always assessing how to meet its most basic needs—food, shelter, procreation, etc. Applied to our writing, that explains […]

Kimberly Brock A couple of months ago, I completed a draft of a new novel that did not stink so badly that I had to shut my computer down in order to get some fresh air. And when it was complete – after five years of work and revision and personal trauma and starting over […]

Kathryn Craft Turning Whine Into Gold The economic crash in 2008 changed how business was conducted in the United States. In book publishing, as the era of the blockbuster gave way to niche marketing, some of the lines previously delineating warring factions grew blurry. This is a good thing for writers who previously spit on […]