Writer Unboxed

Therese here with a quick dip in the mail box… Near Manhattan? The New York Writers Workshop will be hosting a 1 Day Intensive on Sunday, February 13th, 2011 at 11 am, called “I Wrote a Book…Now What? 10 Things You Need to Know to Get Published.” Some deets: This information-packed workshop will focus on [...]

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Have I driven everyone nutzoid changing the background on the site? Should it be purple, mauve, gold, blue? (I think I’m nesting–or procrastinating; I’m working on the last chapter of my 2nd book.) So it’s been a while since we dipped into the WU mailbox. Here are a few of our most recent and valuable [...]

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Kit Dunsmore asked: How do you deal with the different stages of a writing project, especially the ones that are least natural for you? A: At the personal level, what stops me from pushing through the unfamiliar is always fear. Fear that I’ll fail, that I’ll be mediocre, that I’ll be mocked, irrelevant. But I understand [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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, [...]

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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 [...]

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