Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Sara Schaff. Sara Schaff is the author of two short story collections The Invention of Love and Say Something Nice About Me. She is a CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist in fiction and a finalist for the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award for short fiction. Her writing has… Read more »
I know Indigenous Peoples’ Day was back on October 12th. Heck, Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day was way back on June 21st, but I wanted to share some of my favourite Indigenous Science Fiction and Fantasy authors with you in the interest of diversifying your reading. Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse I first encountered Roanhorse’s… Read more »
The Truth about ROI Aside from whether to pursue the traditional publishing route or self-publish, the most frequently asked question I receive from those looking to publish is how much money my book made. The price of publishing comes in different forms – what was your cut, how many copies have you sold, has the… Read more »
We all want to be the great American novelist. But as we’re slogging through the process that is drafting, revising, getting feedback, and editing, sometimes we just need to sit down and write something new and fresh. Flash fiction, generally defined as fiction less than 1,000 words, can do that for you. Here are five… Read more »
A weird flex: I can lay claim to be as formally uneducated in our craft as just about any writer. I’ve never taken a creative writing class, any right-thinking MFA course would have discarded my application at first glance, and I remain unclear as to what a Writers’ Conference even is. Nonetheless, a memoir, a… Read more »
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Andi Cumbo-Floyd. Andi is a writer of both magical realism and nonfiction, but in the last year, she has taken on a new persona as ACF Bookens, author of cozy mysteries. Today we’ll be talking about her process and strategy in crafting this series. When she’s not writing,… Read more »
In my last article Poetry Can Change the World, I make an argument about how vital poetry still is, even in our mad-pace world. Or, lately, just our ‘mad’ world, am I right? In this article I am going to compare poetry to espresso. Hear me out. Maybe it’s my lingering ADHD, maybe it’s my… Read more »
The through-line for this column is motivation despite setbacks. I want to encourage writers to be authentic, but to also no longer make excuses for procrastination. I always want to broach that from an empathic, non-judgmental place, so I sat down and made a list of the excuses I use for not getting my writing done…. Read more »
In an effort to get our fellow word nerds to know Team DIY MFA a bit better, we decided to commandeer one of the #5onFri slots and talk about our favorite books. Predictably, each member approached the notion of “favorite” in a different way and each of us chose a different favorite. We’re a team… Read more »
When we read great dialogue, sparks fly. Why? I love dialogue. When I’m reading a book and I spot dialogue up ahead, I think: Sweet—we’re getting to the good stuff soon. And when I’m writing a book and I get to a part requiring dialogue, I think: Sweet—time to have some real fun. Here’s the… Read more »
