“Words have a certain power and a certain weakness,”… That’s it! I think. That’s the word: sword. “Writers call the pen their ‘sword,’” I type. “Maybe words should be feared ...
Perhaps what is most refreshing though, particularly for a writer of his stature, is his reiterated belief that literature is still, and will continue to remain, relevant, and important, in ...
The time has come to announce our annual creative writing competition open to all 13 – 18 year olds all over the world! The theme this year is MEMORY and ...
Fiction is not a repository of answers to our problems. You simply set out to tell a good story and hope that it speaks to people no matter who they ...
Who lays down the law about that which can and cannot be said in public? Who decides what a writer can speak/write about?
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By the book’s end, the line between dying for attention and murder is blurred.
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Grief, while hard to bear in life, often makes better fodder for fiction than happiness.
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On a residency, perspective dawns. The work is all that matters, you realize. The rest is noise.
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I confessed to him that my anxiety about reading live was by now stopping me sleeping.
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“I think I usually write my way into things.”
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A writing career requires, no less than in any other field, the ability to network.
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Before my first novel came out I virtually never used social media.
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One of the pleasures of writing fiction is the freedom you have to play around with time.
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“A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.”- Tim O’Brien
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For any author smarting from a negative review or a snotty star rating, I heartily recommend the Goodreads exercise. Make a list of the best books you’ve ever read, the ...
Negative reactions are also sometimes from people, usually close friends and family, who can’t bear the thought that you might be wasting your life chasing an impossible dream. People who ...
Negative reactions are also sometimes from people, usually close friends and family, who can’t bear the thought that you might be wasting your life chasing an impossible dream. People who ...
There is a plus side. The Inner Critic, like all aspects of the psyche is multifaceted. Perfectionism is his or her middle name. So as well as being highly effective ...
How hard can it be to find the right title for your novel? You’ve done so much heavy lifting – sweated over several drafts, weaved together complicated plot lines, fleshed ...
The commonest complaint that writers make is that there isn’t enough time in the day. Once you’ve accounted for the day job, recovering from the day job, child-care, emptying and ...