By Sharon Maas My latest novel, The Last Agent in Paris, is what you might call a delayed birth. It all started around 2018, when I decided to change course in my writing. Up to then, my novels had all been historical post-colonial fiction set in either Guyana, on South America’s north-eastern shoulder, or India: […]
By Stacey Simmons I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in writing classes, seminars, workshops, or retreats where a well-meaning instructor, professor, or writing guru has directed me to use The Hero’s Journey (THJ) to structure my story. Whether writing fiction, memoir, or non-fiction, I have been redirected to this pattern more times […]
We’re delighted to feature this character interview by J.T. Ellison! A VERY BAD THING From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has―and everyone she knows. A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. […]
By Sharon Maas My latest novel, The Last Agent in Paris, is what you might call a delayed birth. It all started around 2018, when I decided to change course in my writing. Up to then, my novels had all been historical post-colonial fiction set in either Guyana, on South America’s north-eastern shoulder, or India: […]
We’re delighted to feature this character interview by J.T. Ellison! A VERY BAD THING From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has―and everyone she knows. A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. […]
by Lynne M. Spreen All my life, I dreamed of literary success. I wanted to write and publish a blockbuster novel and live the life of the successful author. The universe had other plans, so I set the dream aside and applied myself to earning a paycheck. While rearing my son, climbing a career ladder, […]
Dead Egyptians “Dead Egyptians takes the reader on a vast, rollicking ride through history, reincarnation, romance and more… ” –Susan Martell Huebner, author She Thought the Door Was Locked In Egypt, all things are possible. So discovers Albion Stanley, a recent Cambridge graduate and brilliant linguist, newly arrived in Cairo in 1902. Albion sees the unseen, including […]
Hello Readers & Friends, How much did we love October? Falling leaves, falling in love, or falling into a great book. Here’s what I read and listened to this month. I hope you’ll consider adding them to your TBR. Then tell us which is your favorite season. Mine is fall, of course. The Intuitive Author: […]
By Stacey Simmons I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in writing classes, seminars, workshops, or retreats where a well-meaning instructor, professor, or writing guru has directed me to use The Hero’s Journey (THJ) to structure my story. Whether writing fiction, memoir, or non-fiction, I have been redirected to this pattern more times […]
By Lorraine Zago Rosenthal After a book deal is signed, the next step on the path to publication is developmental editing, during which an editor gives feedback intended to strengthen the novel. The goal of every fiction editor should be to enhance an author’s writing while maintaining the author’s voice and vision. Fortunately, during the […]
by Michelle Gladieux I’m a fan of communication that aligns with one’s innermost values. I often ask my coaching clients where they’re using full-mind, full-body, and full-heart communication. As I’ve worked to overcome shyness and negative self-talk, I’ve found little things in communication make a big difference. I try to listen more patiently these days. […]
As the powerhouse founder of Running Wild Press, Lisa Diane Kastner has been featured in Forbes and has claimed a spot on multiple “Best of” lists. In her acquisition editorial endeavors, she has identified talent like Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet) and Tori Eldridge (Dance Among the Flames) among many […]
By Mailan Doquang I’m an architectural historian by training. I’ve spent my career researching, writing about, and teaching the history of medieval French architecture, of buildings like Notre-Dame of Paris. In 2018, nearly a decade after completing my doctoral degree, I published The Lithic Garden: Nature and the Transformation of the Medieval Church (Oxford University […]
We’re delighted to feature this character interview by J.T. Ellison! A VERY BAD THING From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has―and everyone she knows. A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. […]
Dead Egyptians “Dead Egyptians takes the reader on a vast, rollicking ride through history, reincarnation, romance and more… ” –Susan Martell Huebner, author She Thought the Door Was Locked In Egypt, all things are possible. So discovers Albion Stanley, a recent Cambridge graduate and brilliant linguist, newly arrived in Cairo in 1902. Albion sees the unseen, including […]
The Last Princess: Daughter of the House of Dragons. Young and beautiful Gytha Godwinson is the envy of England when her father Harold seizes the country’s crown in early 1066. But soon, treachery tears her house apart, and triumph turns to terror. An evil star appears, heralding the end of an era and a new […]
Dr. Dawn Filos grew up in New Jersey in a family of eccentric animal lovers, preparing her for a lifelong career spent with like-minded pet people. She was a veterinarian in Pennsylvania for over thirty years. Her Memoir, TALES OF A PET VET: STORIES FROM THE CLINIC AND HOUSE CALLS is out now. We are […]
CATCH YOU LATER If Lark and Mikki didn’t have each other, they’d have nothing in this miserable town. So the lifelong best friends stick together, working night shift at the highway travel stop, going nowhere fast. Until the ordinary Wednesday that a good-looking stranger stops in on his all-night drive to a destination beach wedding, […]
By Andrea J. Stein, author of Typecast and Dear Eliza When babies are born, there are celebrations galore. Showers are thrown. Gifts are given. Visits are paid. In many ways, books are authors’ babies. They take hours and hours (truthfully, years!) of work to create and cultivate, and then they face a big world full […]
by Marilyn Simon Rothstein Getting published saves time. That’s because it’s no longer necessary to spend hours yearning to be published. Nine out of ten authors are “bestselling”. The rest are “award winning”. Almost every writer was once a lawyer. Smile at this remark, “I’m constantly lending your new book to friends. Did I mention […]
Why is Book Marketing So Damn Hard? I offer a marketing mastermind for writers, called 12 weeks to Book Launch Success. In this group program, I guide novelists and memoir writers to develop a successful launch plan for their book. (If this sounds interesting, more details at the end!) Before developing my program, I interviewed […]
Things I wish I’d known about book marketing: A few specific tips for the author who wants to sell books as well as write them! (1) When people ask me how I found my agent, I tell them about Publishers Marketplace https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/. This is an enormous database that lists (nearly) every book deal, as well […]
I was at a low. I’d just broken up with my literary agent after three years, and it felt as if my publishing dreams would never come true. I couldn’t sleep. I was cranky. When The Secret by Rhonda Byrne was published in 2006, I didn’t read it but at 2am one night the Netflix […]
Here’s why. You slump, shrink, curl down in your seat, never stand up straight. As if an arrow might pick you off. Not an arrow, a bullet. Not a bullet, a blow. Not a blow, words. Not words, looks. Here’s why. You’re a freak. Four inches in one year? Your father’s colleague says he keeps […]
He wanted you to have this. It was written with exaggerated clarity on a scrap of paper, as if the author was unsure of the reader’s grasp of English. The torn paper, rather than a proper card, another signal from the sender. It was signed Elaine, with a rounded, buxom capital E. On the padded […]
Elaine Walsh Barrington revs up her white BMW and reverses the car out of the double garage behind the house. “I really don’t mind getting a taxi to the station again,” Lorna, her younger sister, says from the passenger seat. “You didn’t have to leave your New Years Day open house like this.” The clenched […]
She’s a woman who discards anything which causes sorrow or blocks her path. A man she cares for does both, and she leaves him. She takes only what she really values, an old set of books, a few china plates of her mother’s, an abstract painting she’d found in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She abhors […]
This is an account of what it was like to be nine years old and on the receiving end of the bombing power of a well-armed enemy. Like millions in London we were evacuated at the start of the war. My father went to Harpenden with the insurance company he worked for, two days before […]
Q&A with Literary Agent ERIN NIUMATA Folio Literary Management, VP and Literary Agent Erin Niumata has been in publishing for over three decades. She started as an editorial assistant at Simon and Schuster in the Touchstone/Fireside division for several years; then moved over to Harper Collins as an editor, and then she went to Avalon […]
Three years ago, I was a freelance writer with an extremely long Word document chilling on my hard drive. Today, those 98,000 words mark my shift from aspiring writer to fiction author: The Lost Night is coming out from Crown. My novel is a thriller about a woman uncovering the dark truths surrounding her best […]
A few days ago I did an interview and one of the questions was did I think having an agent was crucial in this business. The answer for me was a huge, resounding yes. My agent is Carly Watters at P.S. Literary Agency, and I literally wouldn’t be where I am now without her patient […]
A Twenty-Five-Question Interview Published as a Five Part Series Part One Part Two | Hosted by MM Finck | | Anonymously Answered By Agented Authors* with Varying Publishing Career Durations and Successes from Debut to Bestselling and Represented by Multiple Literary Agencies of Varying Sizes | QUESTION ELEVEN Historically, how many story ideas do you […]
A Twenty-Five-Question Interview Published as a Five Part Series. Read Part One HERE | Hosted by MM Finck | | Anonymously Answered By Agented Authors* with Varying Publishing Career Durations and Successes from Debut to Bestselling and Represented by Multiple Literary Agencies of Varying Sizes | QUESTION SIX Did your first agented manuscript sell? If […]
Charmed “addresses a range of difficult issues” and is “engaging…full of drama…a compelling love story with flawed characters and complex family dynamics.” -Kirkus Reviews Summary: When dreams are shattered, it’s hard to pick up the pieces. Prisca Weld expected to become Mrs. Nick Fontaine before any of her friends walked down the aisle. Nick worked […]
By Sariah Wilson, author of A Tribute of Fire When I say I love Greek mythology, I really, really love it. In seventh grade I competed in the district’s Language Arts Field Day as the Greek mythology specialist (yes, I was that big of a nerd. And we had school jackets and everything). A few […]
We are delighted to feature this excerpt from Christmas At Reedy Falls by Elizabeth Sumner Wafler! CHRISTMAS AT REEDY FALLS Perfect for fans of A Winter in New York by Josie Silver and Always in December by Emily Stone, Christmas at Reedy Falls is an opposites-attract, wholesome Christmas romance that will leave readers believing in the magic of the holiday—and […]
By Andrée Jannette It started with a persistent tremor. My right hand, my dominant hand, that I used for everything, I could no longer use for anything. I lost my ability to write out my name. I couldn’t hold a pen or brush. I saw a number of doctors to try and figure out what […]
By Julie McDonald Zander More than a dozen years ago, wandering through the Lewis County Historical Museum in Washington State, I read a small placard about a pioneer mother of four who crossed the Oregon Trail in 1847 and suffered a sudden tragedy. What did this mother of young children do, thousands of miles from […]
“Amber, you seem like someone who knows how to use your voice. You just don’t know how to be heard.” This sentence, spoken by my therapist, stopped me in my tracks. I was thirty years old and had devoted my life to speaking. I was a Speech and Debate Champion in high school. I’d traveled […]
THE PATH BENEATH HER FEET “Meticulously researched and beautifully written. The story of a life well lived.” –KATHLEEN GRISSOM, NY Times Bestselling author of The Kitchen House Steeped in rich historical detail, Dr. Eliza Edwards, the ingénue student in The Unlocked Path, becomes the mature mentor, steadfast in her calling to effect social change by addressing women’s health […]
By Lisa Diane Kastner As the powerhouse founder of Running Wild Press, Lisa Diane Kastner has been featured in Forbes and has claimed a spot on multiple “Best of” lists. In her acquisition editorial endeavors, she has identified talent like Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet) and Tori Eldridge (Dance Among […]
By Carolyn McBride The winter of my life came in January 2021. Although I lived in the endless summer of sunny Florida, we were well into the pandemic by then, what seemed like an endless lockdown, and I was working from home in a bedroom right above my then-husband’s office. My department manager pulled me […]
By Kristin Owens My debut novel launched last month. I admit, I’ve had conflicting emotions about it: happiness, acute anxiety, along with a fair amount of nostalgia for the good ol’ days when I was blissfully uninformed. But my ultimate goal is in sight; I can almost see it materialize … soon very soon (rubs hands […]
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