Not much, maybe, but something. That’s the idea behind Dutch Kills Press, LLC. It’s the company I started to publish e-books. Each contributor earns 50% of the profit from his or her e-book. So if a contributor doesn’t earn much, neither does the company. The summer list is up. Check out the website. If you don’t have a Kindle […]
Because they were trying to anticipate what the reviewers would say and have me rewrite the book accordingly, which, I can tell you as a fiction writer and a book reviewer, is a waste of time. Because they wanted me to make changes to satisfy the marketing people. Because I was repeatedly asked, “Why […]
Friends: my delightful wife, in whom I delight, has published a fantastic writing guide, 9 Juicy Weeks to a Wonderfully Imperfect First Draft. It will help you get through your first draft (duh) and help you develop a little discipline and a relatively pain-free writing process. It’s great for fiction writers, playwrights, screenwriters and […]
1. I will use social media wisely. If I have work to share, I will share it. But I will never blog/tweet/Facebook about how hard writing is or how many words I wrote today. Nobody cares! And every time I get caught humblebragging (“I am overwhelmed by all the talent here at Yaddo!”) I […]
I have a story called “The German Photographer” in the Parenthetical Review, a lovely new lit mag. So, to celebrate that, and to remind myself that I am not a lonely, aging hack typing away in an isolated cabin, here’s a partial list of my recent publications. SHORT STORIES Bourges, 1990, about music and […]
Thanks to my friend Mary Valle for inviting me along for the e-ride. What am I working on? • An apocalyptic novel about the Jewish messiah (excerpt!) • A story about a guy who inherits his grandmother’s memory • A story about a miserable unsuccessful person in New York (because no one has ever written […]
Michael Kozlowski at GoodEReader says the term “author” should be reserved for those who make a living from writing: “Calling everyone authors who puts words on a document and submits them to the public devalues the word so much, it makes it meaningless. Indie Author, Self-Published Author, Hybrid Author, Published Author, Blog Author, Forum Author. […]
Here’s Alison Lurie writing on Fay Weldon for the NYRB: “There are now over three hundred college writing programs in the United States. But no matter how much the population increases, people will not need more writers: they can all read multiple copies of the same books. As a result of this imbalance, only […]
(More fun with the traffic-glomming Tweak Your Biz Title Generator) Use only gluten-free notebooks. Walking on a desk treadmill while you write will help you stay fit and also make you look like a complete tool. For arm strength, type with 5-lb free weights duct-taped to your wrists. Do 10 burpees after every sentence. […]
[NB: I was hunting around for blog topics when I came across the Tweak Your Biz Title Generator. I entered “writing” and “Joseph’s Stalin’s Secret Guide To Writing” came up.] The Soviet Union needs a Great Purge — of adverbs! Eliminate the passive voice as if it were the kulaks. If you want to […]