A trend I’m noticing: fiction as a means to write characters we hate and love to hate. I call it The White Lotus effect. Yesteryear springs to mind, and Best American Short Stories of 2025 had a ton of these in it. Why do we do it?
Read MoreBecause dual narratives and frame narratives are frequent tropes, especially in historical and women’s fiction, I edit a decent amount of manuscripts that use them. This can be a fantastic device if the author’s intention in using this structure is either evident on the page or is something they’ve told me they’re working toward.
If the reason is just that it’s a trope of the genre and therefore they have to do it, though? Then, Houston, we may have a problem.
Read MoreHere’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed recently: Writers are increasingly publishing in more than one genre without developing a pen name and related brand. Instead, they’re publishing all their works under the same name (usually their legally given one).
How is this working for them? What are your thoughts?
Read MoreFormal writing courses are, of course, incredible experiences, but I think there’s also something to be said for self-taught craft. That is, putting together your own curriculum to explore during your writing-adjacent time, especially for those of us who aren’t in a position to go back to school. Even if you attend an MFA or regularly get into prestigious workshops, those experiences will take up only a fraction of your life. Are you really not going to learn more and stretch the boundaries and capacity of your writing talent in the off years?
What follows is a bit of advice on building a self-taught writing curriculum, which is then rounded out by a bulleted list of resources I’ve found useful in my own writing life and the lives of my writing friends and clients. I hope it’ll help you, too.
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