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…
5 Over 50: 2025
For a decade we’ve devoted space in each November/December issue to celebrate debut authors over the age of fifty with first books published during the current calendar year. The writers…
Long Live the Longer Short Story: Depth Without a Novel’s Commitment
Our attention spans are being whittled to nonexistence by an increasingly impatient feedback loop, with social media, the internet, and AI competing to devour our attentional capacity. Yet when leafing…
Homecoming: the small web and release from the unitary public self
In 1776, a Quaker living in Philadelphia recovered from a severe illness with a peculiar conviction: they had died and been reborn as the Public Universal Friend. The Public Universal…
Reimagining Place: Setting as Convergence
Something useful that writers can do when setting fiction in a real place is to leave. Choosing projects that allow us to write about a place after we’ve moved away…
Institutional Knowledge
A revolutionary feminist’s portrayal of life with mental illness
Writers With Day Jobs: Earning a Living Outside of Literature
In 2018, as a younger writer in a different phase of life, I was thrilled to interview prolific author William Vollmann. A digital magazine employed me at the time, but…
Do Your Research: Using the Tools of Journalism to Write More Vivid Fiction
Endless research can be an occupational hazard. Johns taught a summer historical fiction workshop where only one writer out of ten brought pages for critique—the other nine had spent years…