Why, oh why, was my manuscript rejected?
Last month’s Slush Pile was another inspiring, interesting, and informative session, filled with praise for work well done and suggestions to make work better. Noah Stetzer (Associate Director, Bull City Press), Tracy Crow (Tracy Crow Literary Agency), and Ty Stumpf (Poet and Humanities Chair, Central Carolina Community College), would have continued to read many […]
So, you want to self-publish your manuscript—
Self-publishing with Graham Bird So, you want to self-publish your manuscript—easy peasy, right? Well, maybe. It all depends on what you want to be when you grow up. That is the question Graham Bird, asks all his marketing clients. Graham is asking what you want to and why. The answers he says will prevent […]
Writing Is An Adventure
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) began in 1999 as a way to encourage twenty-one would-be novel writers to complete a manuscript in a month’s time. Fifty thousand words was set as the goal because Chris Baty, the founder, determined that was the length of the shortest novel on his bookshelf—Huxley’s Brave New Word. NaNoAriMO quickly […]
Congratulations, Sandra!
Sandra Fisher’s “Fine” won our 2021 One-Syllable Ulta Flash Fiction contest. To read her story, click on the Ultra Flash Fiction heading, above.
Ekphratic Writing: Ways to Generate Poems and Short Fiction
Ekphrasis: One artist looking at the art of another and finding inspiration through reflection. When looking at art, we can record what we see in the work either literally or metaphorically. We can record how the art makes us think or feel about the world or about ourselves. We can record information about the […]
Examples of Ekphratic Writing
The Big Push By John Glenday after Sir Herbert James Gunn ‘The Eve of the Battle of the Somme’ Would you believe it, there’s a bloke out there singing ‘When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day’. His audience, a sixty-pounder crew, stand round bleeding from the ears. The Boche are all […]
Ekphratic Writing Exercises
To begin, select a photograph or a photo of a piece of art, which could be of a painting, sculpture, carving, etc that resonates with you in some way. Part One Freewriting: 2 minutes. Write a description—visual-only—of what you see in the photograph. Remember to avoid abstract nouns and adjectives; use concrete, specific details. […]
Genre: Poetry
Everyone has their own idea about what poetry is—depending on what they’ve been exposed to. And I’m quite happy to leave the subject at that. “Although poetry is a form of self-expression that knows no bounds, it can be safely divided into three main genres: lyric poetry, narrative poetry and dramatic poetry.” […]
Genre: Fiction
If creative nonfiction is true stories told well, then perhaps we can define fiction as imaginary stories told well. Kinds of Fiction Literary fiction Work in which the skillful use of language is paramount, regardless of subject or theme. Genre fiction Work in which the subject or theme is paramount. The two […]
Introduction to Literary Genres
One question pops up in discussions about marketing, book proposals, and social media: know your audience. Who are we writing for? Who do we want to read our work? Hiding behind these questions is this: are we providing what our potential readers want? Genres are a fundamental part of the answer, whether the manuscript […]