Writer Unboxed

I wish they taught this skill to students in high school or college. Creative writing students especially need to spend a semester on it, but never do. You’d think publishers would deliver a 101 guide on it for their authors, though I’m not sure the publishers themselves always know anything about it. The skill is [...]

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from Barbara O’Neal:  I am delighted to have had the chance to interview my friend Barbara Freethy, who has experienced a truly astonishing trajectory as an Indie publisher this year. A traditionally published author for two decades, Barbara started experimenting with indie publishing late last year. Listen in as she talks about her journey, her [...]

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GIVEAWAY: I am (again) excited to give away a free copy of the new 2012 Guide to Literary Agents to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. Good luck to all and Happy Holidays! (Update: Allison won.) If you’re going to wheel and deal [...]

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I’m going to take a month off in December from this site. I need to prepare a few things (maybe even a presentation) for my upcoming novel. I’ll be back in January, but still I’m nervous about leaving y’all. So in order to cope with this fear, I’ve decided to get my wife to film [...]

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Kath here. New York Times bestselling author Barry Eisler made headlines when he turned his back on a six figure deal to self-publish his highly anticipated thriller THE DETACHMENT as an Amazon Kindle exclusive. Barry, a former CIA covert operative, had been appearing on the bestselling lists for years with his nailbiting thrillers. His handshake [...]

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Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S. We’ll be taking a break today to celebrate, reflect on what we’re thankful for . . . and to EAT!  Speaking of eating, valued contributor, resident expert on all things French, and gourmand Sophie Masson is running a series of essays where writers and editors reflect on foods that touched their lives. Best of all, they also share [...]

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  23 years ago, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I sold my first book. This is what I remember: it was overcast and gloomy, my favorite kind of weather, so my children were playing with Play-doh at the table and I was writing in the mini office I had set up in the dining room. [...]

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Therese here. Today’s guest is the delightful Rebecca Rasmussen, who’s here to talk with us about her experience with publicity and how it’s impacted her–personally and professionally–since the release of her debut novel, The Bird Sisters. Rebecca’s novel releases in paperback today, and if you haven’t yet picked it up, now’s the time. Said the [...]

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One of these days I’ll write an honest-to-goodness helpful post that will be linked to and referenced and included in MFA syllabi for years to come. In the meantime you get this – the product of a stressful month in which the O’Hara family surmounted health, dental, and relationship challenges. Since I cope by using [...]

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Kath here. I love it when we are able to feature the debut of someone who has been part of the WU (and now RU) community. Some of you many recognize Erika Liodice’s name. Her website and blog Beyond the Gray have been a source of inspiration to the online writing community for years. And [...]

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This year was my first year to participate in the hugely popular NaNoWriMo. (I figured that since my youngest just turned 2, I finally had a prayer of achieving the target 1667 words per day). Now, let me say first of all that I am a NaNo ‘rebel’–if you go to the NaNoWriMo website you’ll [...]

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This week brought a happy day when I received the ratings and comments from writers who were in my Crafting a Killer First Page workshop at the 2011 Write on the Sound Writer’s Conference in Edmonds, WA. This is my third time doing the workshop at WOTS, and the ratings are key to being invited [...]

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