Writer Unboxed

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I really like to read the Writer’s Almanac daily. Love me my poetry fix, and the graphs that follow the poem often include mini biographies of writers whose birthday falls on a given day. Today’s outtakes were particularly enjoyable. Here are a few:
It’s the birthday of writer […]

From Banbury Cake:
OXFORD author Philip Pullman has written a new book, aimed at fans of his award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy.
Earlier this month, Mr Pullman, 61, attended the premiere of The Golden Compass, alongside film stars Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman.
He said he was delighted with the £90m movie adaptation of Northern Lights, the first […]

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read. –Groucho Marx
I have a confession to make: I haven’t read a novel in months. Months! I’ve been pushing hard to finish the final draft of my wip (new goal: end of the year or bust) and […]

One of the things I like about Writer Unboxed is that it takes genre writing seriously – we respect each other as writers and don’t make any assumptions about just where mystery, fantasy, romance, horror or whatever fits in the total spectrum of fiction writing. People who don’t know me well often take it for […]

It’s something music can do well: evoke the feeling of a text in underlayments, make it palpable through rhythm and phrasing. Even without accompaniment. There’s an a capella version of Shenandoah in which you can hear the sound of the river in the current of voices.
Poets do it too, with phrases that twist and […]

Halloween is over, but here at my house we’re still working off our Snickers high while images of this year’s vivid costumes linger. (My son went as an evil jester, and not even I would want to meet up with anyone wearing that thing on a non-Halloween eve.)
Created characters can be whatever we want them […]

Lots of industry news this week. First, the winner of the prestigious Booker Prize was announced: Anne Enright, Irish author, has come away with top honors. There are two interesting charity events taking place: All About Romance is holding an auction to benefit victims of Katrina and a bunch of renowned children’s book illustrators are […]

Legal troubles for Houghton Mifflin, a push to end the selling of ARCS & galleys, the death of Harlequin’s NEXT line, a film partnership for HarperCollins and more. Read the latest books & business news at the WU Google Notebook HERE.
Write on, all!

My new novel for young adults, Cybele’s Secret, has been released this week here in Australia. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share Kinuko Craft’s gorgeous cover painting with you. Unfortunately, the American edition doesn’t come out until September 2008, so anyone wanting a cute Knopf hardback to match their copy of Wildwood Dancing has […]

So…I just sold my second novel. Hurrah! Since I’ve already published my first one, it must have been a breeze, right? Er, no. In fact, the book that I anticipated being my follow-up novel was not the one that sold - and I have a theory as to why. Play […]

Quick reminder: Our latest contest ends Friday, Sept. 14. It’s shaping up to be quite a doozy, too. Don’t miss out!

Madeline L’Engle has died.

Like every American 5th grader, I was forced to read A Wrinkle in Time, and I hated it. Oh sure, the tesseracts–folded time–was cool, but as a dorky 11-year-old […]

I’m thrilled to announce that Donald Maass has agreed to an interview with me for Writer Unboxed. Maass, as most of you probably already know, has his own agency (Donald Maass Literary Agency) and is the author of my very favorite craft book for unboxing story, Writing the Breakout Novel. Seriously, if you don’t have […]