Truing the Narrative: Revising for Symmetry to Make Your Manuscript Sing
I taught a seven-week course on revision in a church basement. I had about a half dozen students, all of whom brought either a chapter from a longer work-in-progress, a…
Dare to Defamiliarize: In Praise of Fluidity
Dissolving boundaries expands my craft arsenal. Openness to new mediums and genres expands my ideas and problem-solving. What if—for the sake of a good stretch and a cracked back, because…
99% Invisible: The Em Dash
The strange history of a punctuation mark that makes writing feel human, and why people now think it proves the opposite.
Allusionist 221. Scribe
"I have never felt so naked. That's how exposed I felt at the idea that my handwriting was going to be seen by the world," says Tim Brookes, founder of…
A dream denied: My 54-year quest to publish a short story in F&SF
To start, one of the problems with the Must Read Magazines business model is that any progress achieved by a single author doesn’t accrue to all authors. Each author must…
Tumblr Dialogue how-to thread
“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.
Looking for Love in a Time of Global Loneliness: A Profile of Kiran Desai
Within the first few pages of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai’s stunning new novel, the fissures among generations, cultures, classes, and countries become abundantly clear. When Dadaji…
Our Opinions Are Correct: We’re Still Traumatized By This Writing Debate
Not long ago, everybody was arguing about whether characters need to be "relatable". We get to the bottom of a debate that still makes us intensely grouchy. Plus we talk…
An Agent’s Perspective on Literary Magazines
Literary magazines, both online and in print, are such an important means of supporting creative work—for writers, readers, and the staff of those publications—and they’ve proved to be a great…
Index of Excellent Indie Markets
The following index offers key information on all forty venues featured in our guides to indie markets. While we’ve recommended notable outlets by genre, keep in mind that most of…