Susan Spann The explosion of independent publishing houses in the U.S. and abroad makes it vital for authors to investigate publishers carefully before signing a contract. While even diligent research can't ensure you’ll avoid every possible problem, here are some questions to ask before you accept a traditional publishing deal: If the  answer is "yes," […]

Revisions have always been my favorite part of the writing process. That’s when my geek side takes over and I color code scenes and lay them out and analyze story threads and add the details that pull everything together. A control freak’s happy place. When the editorial letter for book 2 came in I was […]

Emily Cavanagh For the past ten years, I have written steadily and quietly. While my friends, family, and colleagues all knew I wrote, only a few close writer friends knew the extent of my writing life. Only a handful of people knew that I had written four unpublished novels. When I would somehow let this […]

Descriptions are some of my favorite things to do. But they're not easy to write well. Descriptions have changed over the years.  Stienbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939. Here's the beginning:  Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Steinbeck fan, but that was before TV, Netflix, apps, and Xbox. Back when readers had […]

Kari Lynn Dell If you’d asked me twenty years ago, the idea that a ranch girl from Montana who majored in sports medicine could up and write a book would’ve seemed ludicrous. Then this story got stuck in my head. The characters—typical of many of the cowboys I’ve dated—settled in on my mental couch, hogging […]