The giveaway is completed, but sometimes it’s useful to have a look at past posts. Here it is: “Follow the link to Library Thing Giveaways, and enter for a chance to receive a free copy. One week only starting August 20. A collection of Short Fiction. Told as short stories and plays. “ It’s […]
The Whole Megillah in One Place Everyone knows you can go to Amazon and Goodreads to see the reviews and ratings that readers have given your book. What about the reviews that are written on blogs that don’t get moved over to Amazon or Goodreads? Isn’t a rating on Goodreads or on a blog a […]
Story Writing – the Open Door A novel is definitely a story, even if you don’t like it. Maybe it’s not your cup of tea genre-wise. Maybe it doesn’t rise to your estimation of what makes a good thriller. Maybe you just can’t keep reading it. Whatever. The same thing holds for a novella. […]
I’m pleased to have Harlan Baker as the subject for this interview. Harlan is an adjunct professor in the Theatre department at the University of Southern Maine, an actor, a former member of the Maine legislature, a union activist, and democratic socialist. He studied theater at Emerson College and graduated in 1969, and has a […]
I’m studying a book called “The Weekend Novelist” by Robert J. Ray. I find it engrossing, informative, enlightening. Books like this talk authoritatively about all things having to do with writing, so it seems a good place to look for some answers. I believe stories are stories regardless of the form they take. That […]
Last night I submitted my first truly self published book to the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing program. This morning, there it was! Miraculous. It’s self published in the sense that I either took each step along the way personally, or I engineered the step by hiring someone to do what I thought I couldn’t do. […]
American Readers Like Unconventional Characters, but… In an article Amit Mujmudar wrote for the NY Times on May 5 entitled Am I an ‘Immigrant Writer‘?, he explores writing for the American fiction reading world as a minority. Almost immediately he concludes that “a minority author may well have an advantage”. It stems from the American reader’s appetite […]
A good idea is a good idea, period. Right? Yes! When I first wrote a number of short stories and plays, the impetus for writing them was that they represented truth as I knew it. Now, I reread them and find that the development of the idea seems weak. I did a fairly decent […]
The Granddaddy of American Short Play Festivals As Catalyst for Action The deadline for submitting an entry for the 38th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival has come and gone. Forty finalists will be chosen by a reading panel from over 900 submissions. The forty finalist plays will be performed live in […]
This is a New York Times article about PTSD and homelessness among female military veterans, a serious problem for our time that demands our attention. Sexual trauma in the military. http://nyti.ms/XHRUIw Related articles Homeless Female Veterans: All Too Often, a ‘Double Betrayal of Trust’ Female Veterans Are Fastest Growing Segment of Homeless Population