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Letters to a Young Novelist

Finding Your Path in Publishing The young writer of fiction today faces a very different publishing landscape than even a decade ago. You can take a far different path in publishing a novel than when I started out, decades ago. Choice! A new writer has so many more choices than existed in the past — which consisted mainly of submitting manuscripts directly to a publisher, if you had connections, or to an agent.

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Illustrated Preview of my novel The Renaissance Club, and countdown to launch!

It’s starting to feel like the countdown to the offical launch of my novel, The Renaissance Club, in January! As the daughter of a rocket scientist, I have to use rocket metaphors in connection with the word “launch”. Very soon you’ll be able to pre-order my book on Amazon. And also soon, I’ll host a giveaway. My giveaway will include another good read, signed paperback copies of my book of poems and essays, Gods of…

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Why Writers Wait So Much

For the decades that I’ve been writing, I’ve often wondered why writers wait so much. We wait for inspiration, we wait for writing time, and excruciatingly, we wait for responses from publishers and agents. Sometimes I’ve waited months for a reply to an agent query or a literary journal. Is it just me and my writing? What makes them hesitate and delay? Or is the publishing industry so clogged with writers pitching their writing that…

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More Embarrassing Riches in Poetry Publishing

The end of 2016 was very lucky for my poetry publishing. In this second installment on an embarrassment of riches, I’m delighted to share my poem, “Bird Bones”, which was recently published in the redoubtable Prairie Schooner. Thanks, editors! I also had work published in Eclectica‘s 20th anniversary anthology, Prairie Schooner, Atlanta Review, Panoply (who very kindly nominated my poem for a Pushcart Prize!) and Peacock Journal (where they put beauty first). Prairie Schooner had…

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An Embarrassment of Riches

My literary stocking overflowed this December. but I was so busy I didn’t have time to mention it to anyone but those who saw the stack of magazines on my coffee table. I’m taking it as a sign of the new year, a flowering, perspicacious publication kind of 2017. I also found a late December rose, two blooms that opened up and held for a miraculous week. All good omens for a new year. No…

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Platform, platform — I thought those shoes went out in the 80s

Author platform: what is it, do I need it for fiction, and other brain-freezing topics. There’s so much written about this ugly word (I keep thinking of those awful shoes you can literally fall off and break your ankle), that my research has frozen my mind on the topic. So here’s my hopefully refreshing take on Platform for Novelists. You don’t need one. No, you just need to be your most authentic writer-self, and in…

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Publishing a Memoir — Strategies & Tricks of Memory

They’re like fallen leaves, memories. They arrange themselves in nature’s beautiful random order beyond our ability to perceive, like weather, like a life until you’re looking back on it and suddenly see an organizational purpose. And are amazed into writing about it. The thing is, who else wants to see it? Why is that mysterious, suddenly perceived arrangement important to anyone but you? That’s the question a memoir essay or book must answer. Answering it…

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Superheroes and Imaginary Giraffes

Starting off with two of my recent fantasy/fairytale/science-fiction poems, I’m starting what will be a  great summer run of poem publications. Gingerbread House has just published my poem “Transparency” about a superhero dead-drunk on dilithium crystals and impossible to manage. Sharad Haksar‘s “Superhero,” that accompanies the poem, is fantastic! Mockingheart Review, a new publication under the direction of Clare L. Martin, began the sequence with publishing my poems “Giraffes” about a mythical herd that inhabits…

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