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Path to Publication 3.4: Gearing Up For A Big Year, and How Deadlines Change Everything

January 5th, 2015

Polis Books will release my debut novel, New Yorked, in June, with the follow-up, City of Rose, tentatively slated to follow in October. This is a monthly column about taking a book over the finish line.

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UPDATED WITH WINNER - LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: December Edition

January 2nd, 2015

Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity. Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess. How It Works We give you inspiration in the form of a picture, poem, video, or prompt. You write a flash fiction piece using the inspiration we gave you. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked and awarded a prize.

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Off The Grid Reads: 'Fourth Of July Creek' By Smith Henderson

December 30th, 2014

So you've finally had it. You're sick of the grind: the job, email, Facebook, Twitter, text messages, television constantly trying to sell you shit you don't need. When you were first starting out, you never pictured your life turning out the way it has. You always thought you'd live close to the land, maybe farm and hunt your food, build your house with your own hands, fall in love with a woman who had the same ideals. But nope, nothing of the sort has happened.

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Crappy New Year: 5 Failed Writing Resolutions

December 30th, 2014

I use New Year’s to make a solemn promise to myself.  A New Year's resolution to renew myself as a writer, as an artist. As a human. Then I drink a huge glass of something, followed by a dainty glass of something else, and then eat an entire bag of BBQ chips and pass out mostly dressed. Truly, it's a banner start to every year.

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Product Review: Inateck BK1001E Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard

December 29th, 2014

Back in June of this year, I wrote about the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad Air, a nifty bit of tech designed to act as a protective enclosure for your tablet's screen when closed, and a Bluetooth keyboard with iOS specific buttons when opened. As far as keyboard cases go, the Logitech is top-notch, but for many of us, the idea of foregoing a traditional cover or case—and thus any protection when the keyboard isn't in use—isn't appealing.

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Storyville: The Top Ten Things I Read in 2014

December 29th, 2014

This list is kind of unconventional. Sure, there are novels on here, books you can run out and buy. There are a few short stories here as well—online and otherwise. But there is also some fiction you can’t get yet, and even a foreword makes the list. I hope these ten items give you some voices to read now, to look for in the near future, and to track down in a year or so. Anticipation, right?

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Seven Important Marketing Lessons We Can Learn From the Bestselling Books of 2014

December 23rd, 2014

Picking books is a fraught business; difficult enough when the audience you have in mind is you, harder still when, like me, your job as Review Editor means picking books for other people to read and write about for an even bigger audience Out There (that would be you) about whom I know next to nothing at all.

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LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2014 (part 3)

December 22nd, 2014

Another year has come and gone. You know what that means, don't you? Time for a bunch of strangers to tell you what was good! And why should you care what the LitReactor writers think are the best books of the year? Trick question! You shouldn't. But what they have to say might interest you nonetheless, because they are good-looking and knowledgeable and they read like the wind. So for those who care, we submit for your approval/derision some of LitReactor's favorite reads of 2014.

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Hide Your Mistletoe: The Bizarre Tradition of Holiday Romance

December 22nd, 2014

For a long time, one thing about Christmas and the publishing industry always eluded me, and that is the influx of awkward, holiday-themed romances with titles like Tis the Season to be Sinful or Kissing Santa Claus (yuck). If you aren’t sure what I mean, just keep your eyes peeled the next time you’re in a department store between mid September and New Years—I guarantee you’ll find at least one muscled torso wrapped in red ribbon, or jaded cowboy learning to love again with the first snowfall.

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8 Ways to Make Your Characters More Relatable

December 22nd, 2014

How does one write a compelling character? It's a question so complex that you might as well ask how to write a good book. That said, there are a number of factors that crop up again and again when we look at the characters who strike a chord with many of their readers. One such factor is relatability, and in this article, I'm going to talk about ways to make your character more relatable.

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