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10 Mistakes I Made as a Debut Novelist
April 10th, 2017
As a debut novelist with an approaching pub date, your browser history gets filled with titles like "X Lessons I Learned as a Debut Novelist" or "Tips on Being a Debut Novelist" or "Marketing Your Debut Novel." In the months leading up to that big day, you can wind up doing as much research as an expectant mother. But there are some issues that, in my experience, you won't find addressed in these sort of articles—issues of the sort that blindsided me when my first book came out.
Read Column →Open to Inspiration: How Your Own Family History Can Feed Your Fiction
April 10th, 2017
I didn’t expect to find the hook to my next book by the veggie platter. But that’s what happened, and it saved my novel. Let me back up. This was a couple years ago, at my mother-in-law’s birthday party in Brooklyn. We’d all gathered to celebrate the day, eat some food and relax. I wasn’t even thinking about my third Pete Fernandez Miami mystery novel, Dangerous Ends. Hell, I was actively trying not to think about it. That was mostly because I was hitting a big wall with the story and the clock was tick-tick-ticking.
Read Column →Email Newsletters: A Writer's Best Friend
April 7th, 2017
Header images via Pixabay & Andrea Piacquadio Email newsletters—they're probably a thing you delete on sight and wonder why you just don't unsubscribe already. They've become so much junk, as expendable as LinkedIn messages, penis enhancement correspondence, and offers of beaucoup bucks from Nigerian princes.
Read Column →The Case For and Against Bob Dylan's Nobel Win
April 7th, 2017
Maybe it’s been long enough that we can talk about Bob Dylan’s Nobel win with clear heads? Before we start, I’m going to tell you this: I’m not a Bob Dylan fan. When I set out to write this, I felt one way about it. By the time I finished, I felt differently. Perhaps you can join me. Open your mind a bit, maybe have a drink or seven, and really consider the possibilities. Let’s look at the various arguments for and against Dylan’s win for the Nobel Prize In Literature.
Read Column →Give the Girl a Name, Already!
April 5th, 2017
Imagine if Rebecca, Jane Eyre and Lolita had been published in 2017. The Ghost Girl. The Girl with Dignity. The Girl on the Road. Or, The Girl With the Creepy Old Dude. Or perhaps, better yet, simply The Girl. It just doesn’t work, does it? And yet…
Read Column →10 Reasons Why Poetry is the Manliest of Genres
April 3rd, 2017
Okay, so when you're not trying to be very politically correct about it, chances are you think of romance as a feminine genre and crime as a manly one, right? You are obviously wrong because a plethora of authors in both genres have shown that, even if romance if predominantly consumed by women, gender has absolutely nothing to do with writing. Just kidding: it totally does. In any case, I want to prove to you that poetry is, surprisingly, the manliest genre. Here are ten reasons why.
Read Column →The Violence Yet to Come: Breaking Down the 'Taboo' Pilot
March 31st, 2017
Late in the series run of FX's Taboo, James Delaney leans in and warns a character: "You can leave right now, or you can stay here for the violence yet to come." There is no better description for the rather unimpressive Taboo pilot. It's an unimpressive placeholder of a TV episode, but there's a reason I watched the entire season—because I was afraid that if I didn't watch, Tom Hardy would find me. And I didn't want to miss the violence yet to come.
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