Columns

Five Things I Loved (and Five I Loathed) About My MFA Experience

March 12th, 2021

I last wrote for this site in late 2015. The core cause of my absence is this: I spent 2015 through 2018 earning my Master's of Fine Arts in fiction and have spent the time since teaching comp and lit at a local community college. My hope is that these experiences give me some worthwhile insight to share. Given the thoroughly mixed experience I had with the MFA program itself, I felt this would be a good place to start. So, in this article, I'm going to share five things I loved and five I hated about my master's program.

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Reflections on WriteOnCon, A Jam-Packed Online Conference for Kidlit Writers

March 11th, 2021

Several years ago, I heard about an online writing conference specifically geared toward kidlit authors called WriteOnCon. Every year since then, I've eagerly signed up for the conference and counted down the days until mid-February to attend the live workshops, panels, and Q&As, as well as soak in the wisdom from the various blogs, podcasts, and vlogs the conference sets up.

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The Sound of Absence: Utilizing White Space in Poetry

March 10th, 2021

When I first started writing poetry, my focus was on imagery and how devices like metaphor, simile, and personification could help elicit a stronger reaction in my readers. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent (and still spend) writing analogies in my drafting notebook or scribbling down weird appearances that showed up in my dreams in hopes that one day, they’ll work themselves into a poem or be a soundboard for a doorway into something dark and surreal that ends up on the page.

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What is Quiet Horror?

March 9th, 2021

There are so many enticing elements of horror that draw readers in and hold their attention. It's the dread-inducing suspense, chilling prose or maybe that creeping tension winding tighter and tighter. But nothing enthralls me more than the atmospheric feeling you get from reading quiet horror. Such a story is palpable and I crave it with every new book I pick up. This is something that I believe to be lost on a lot of readers of the macabre. Many are familiar with the gripping stories, but not so much the term or meaning of quiet horror.

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10 Terrible Writing Ideas that Shouldn't Work, But Sometimes Do

March 8th, 2021

Let’s just admit it up front. There are way more than ten terrible writing ideas, and we’ve all tried a few of them. I could work on this article every day for the rest of my life and never list them all. Trying to catalog every terrible writing idea would be yet another terrible writing idea. Still, for every terrible idea, there is someone out there who made it work, the exception that proves the rule.

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Why I'm Not Submitting for Publication Anymore

March 5th, 2021

Everybody has their 2020 story. Here’s mine: January: I get the flu. Twice. Then, after a pretty terrifying afternoon, I discover that someone in my life, VERY close to me, has a medical situation. I’m not going to spill all the beans here because it’s not my story to tell, let’s just leave it at this: think of the 5 scariest, worst pieces of medical news you can get. This medical situation she’s/we’re facing, it’s probably in that top 5.

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On Revenge Fantasies, Male Toxicity and "Promising Young Woman"

March 4th, 2021

There are the bright gaudy colors. Costumes. Pop music, especially, though not limited to "Toxic" by Britney Spears. And to say that the experience of watching Promising Young Woman is similar to that of getting on a twisty, amusement park ride is not a stretch.

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Why Every Author Should Write Haiku

March 1st, 2021

I am not a poet, except maybe in the sense that if you ever write something, you can call yourself a writer. So, I have written poems. I’ve even written a few not assigned by teachers in grade school. But I’m not a poet, really. Many of you reading this may not be either. So, why am I pushing the idea that you write haiku?

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The Importance of the Character Interview

February 25th, 2021

Image via Alex Green Writers are creators. Creators of worlds, stories, and of people. We flesh out characters—that to some, seem like very real individuals—with hopes, motivations, frustrations, and goals. We may even become protective of these imaginary people, especially when they have stories that are yet to be told.

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Old Book Marketing Wisdom That Needs To Change

February 24th, 2021

Bill Veeck was a baseball team owner who did some crazy shit. He held a game where the fans used cards to vote on the team's strategy throughout the game while the team's manager sat in a rocking chair. He gave away livestock at games, including, one time, a horse.

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