Libby from Author Exposure dropped us a line to let us know that WU blog mama Therese Walsh’s book The Last Will of Moira Leahy is being considered for the December reading selection at the online book club Author Exposure. Vote for Therese and help spread the word about her terrific book (vote HERE)! Author [...]

We’re getting a bunch of goodies in our inbox these days. Aggie Villanueva dropped us a line about the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week.  She has a request: “Hello all. I’m doing a live interview with Angela Maycock, Assistant Director at the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom about their annual Banned Books Week and year-round [...]

Recently, we received an e-mail from a reader who wrote the following: I received a note from an agent today saying: ‘…Nor do I think harking back to one of the oldest fairytales of all time . . . is right for contemporary fantasy readers.’ To give this comment context, one of my characters escaped [...]

Valued contributor Sophie Masson is on a hot streak!  Here’s her latest: When it rains it pours–got more good news yesterday–a new book of mine, JACK OF SPADES (a fun spy thriller for kids set in Paris in 1910 against a background of anarchist attacks) has just been bought by the UK publisher Chicken House–but as they [...]

What’s link-share day? It’s a day to open the floor to you, our learned WU readers. What are your favorite blogs and websites for writers? What’s your personal url? C’mon, don’t be shy. Pimp all in comments. I have a happy announcement: This past week my agent called to say, “Good news! You have a [...]

Ken sent us the following question: “What’s the difference between a prologue, a foreword and a preface?  Also, I’ve heard that fiction writers should avoid prologues and incorporate it into the backstory.  Thoughts?  Thanks in advance.” Great question, Ken. Prologues, I’ll tackle in a minute as there is a bit of disagreement over a prologue’s [...]

Valued contributor Sophie Masson sent us this message, introducing a site called Richard Harland’s Writing Tips: Thought this would be of interest to readers of Writer Unboxed. Richard Harland, who compiles it, is a very good writer–and a friend of mine! It’s a great free service he’s doing.. Richard Harland:  “So far, I’m a middling-successful [...]

Award-winning YA author and WU friend K.L. Going dropped us a line about a contest she is holding for her latest release: I’m thrilled to announce that I have a new book out this month! It’s a teen novel called King of the Screwups, and it’s already gotten starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and School Library Journal, [...]

Can I get a squee!  Valued contributor Sophie Masson’s latest release THE MADMAN OF VENICE has released and is available NOW! The London home of Matthew Ashby is visited by the beautiful, famous half-Venetian musician, Emilia Lanier, begging him for help. A young Venetian girl, Sarah, has been accused of witchcraft by a wealthy merchant’s [...]

Look.  Ain’t it purty? This is the cover of my forthcoming CONFESSIONS OF A FIRST DAUGHTER, which releases September 1.  My editor at Working Partners LTD sent it over a few months back, but we’d only gotten permission from HarperTeen to release the image last week.  I’m thrilled.  The image is sophisticated yet fun, just [...]

Goodies from the mailbox include a Pitch Party invite for St. Pat’s Day; an opportunity to win a scholarship to a Donald Maass “Weeklong Intensive” seminar; an invite a check out a new, interactive grammar site; and a link to 100 creative writing blog sites. In the first envelope…. Chris Elden from Book Roast wrote: [...]

Excellent news from valued contributor Sophie Masson: Demigods and Monsters, the essay collection on Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series for children, in which I have an essay called Language of the Heart, is now out in a general trade edition with Ben Bella Books.  Amongst other things, the essay is about how the childhood reading of myths [...]

We’ve recently received a couple of interesting tidbits we’d like to alert WU readers to.  Please note that we’re not necessarily promoting the product/contest/opportunity, we’re just passing the information on in the hopes that it might prove useful or entertaining. Stacy Schlicht wrote: Hi, I wanted to let you know about Bookrix.com, a first-of-its-kind social [...]

WU reader Julia Weston asked this question in response to Therese’s post on Facebook and building an author website: I’m an unpublished fiction writer and, after reading all the comments, I have to confess that I’m a bit intimidated by all this. Why? Because I’m unpublished. I have a finished manuscript and I’m preparing to search [...]

Some questions for me this week. Therese, Do you think your nonfiction credits have helped or hindered you at all? Does your nonfiction writing experience tie in with fiction? Are you going to continue writing nonfiction now that the fiction is going to be published? Cathy J Thanks for the questions, Cathy J! I worked [...]