Columns

A Series of Small Circles: How "Endgame" Engineered an Effective Ending

June 20th, 2019

Endings are hard. Ask any author what the most difficult part of their job is, and I guarantee “writing endings” is the answer. It demands a perfect balancing act. Your ending must reflect the hero’s entire journey in microcosm and revisit the major themes without getting repetitive. It also has to be surprising yet plausible, so the audience doesn’t see it coming, but still accepts it as a reasonable conclusion. Never mind the cover—most readers will judge your book by its ending.

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Every Single Redwall Book—Ranked

June 19th, 2019

Pick up Redwall in any bookstore, and you might be bemused by the scene on its cover. After all, it’s a funny-looking mouse standing in front of a castle, waving a tiny sword in the air. But this is one book you shouldn’t judge by its cover — it’s the first installment in one of the greatest children’s series of all time.

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6 Books To Celebrate Pride Month

June 18th, 2019

Header background by Steve Johnson I love heritage months so much because they make me think. They make me think about my own experience walking through the world and how it aligns or doesn't with the myriad experiences around me. These months are a focused opportunity to broaden our perspectives and truly appreciate the challenges various communities endure. Pride month is my favorite because it's symbol is the rainbow and it encompasses such a broad range of interesting individuals.

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13 Books That Wouldn't Be Published Today

June 17th, 2019

In his new book of non-fiction, White, Bret Easton Ellis questions whether Cormac McCarthy’s dark western Blood Meridian would be published today. To paraphrase Ellis, Blood Meridian is an aesthetic masterpiece, but it’s also an ideological nightmare. It lives in the spot where aesthetics intersect with ideology. Or, not so much intersect as barrel towards each other like two trucks with burned-out brakes. After those trucks collide, would Blood Meridian come out of the wreckage whole?

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Writing a Novel With Save the Cat!

June 13th, 2019

There is no right way or wrong way to write a novel. All you have to do, as Neil Gaiman once said, is “Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.” But even though there is only one way to write a novel – actually writing it – there are multiple strategies for plotting your novel. Outline? No outline? Pantser? Methodical plotter?

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What Does It take to Get a Job in Publishing?

June 11th, 2019

Photo by Tim Gouw In the summer of 2012, I got an internship at W.W. Norton & Co., a privately-owned publishing company in New York City, known for their anthologies and critical editions. To a girl who grew up reading books in a small town in Pennsylvania, moving to the “biggest” city (Philadelphia was the “big” city) to work in books was the most exciting dream-come-true.

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What Joy Williams and Denis Johnson Can Teach Us About the Art of First Sentences

June 7th, 2019

Author photos: Curtis Brown, Cindy Johnson Human beings are shaped by their environments as much as they shape their environments. So, too, do the first sentences of short stories shape the stories themselves, as much as they are shaped by their stories.

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5 Lessons Fiction Writers Can Learn From Video Games

June 6th, 2019

Images via Jeshoots and rawpixel I’ve been playing video games about as long as I’ve been a writer, and for several years I was in the game industry — as a tester, designer, and writer.

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How I Did an Unintentional Book Tour Without a Budget

June 5th, 2019

I never thought I'd do anything even remotely resembling a book tour. I'm a broke writer published by a no-budget indie press. Then, somehow, I found myself on the road, despite my lack of funds. And it isn't over—I have a few more stops scheduled before then end of the year. Here are some tips for those of you wanting to do the same.

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8 Superb Books to Celebrate Rainbow Book Month

June 4th, 2019

In 2015, the American Library Association started GLBT Book Month: a nationwide celebration of authors and books that explore the experiences of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. As of 2020, GLBT Book Month was renamed Rainbow Book Month™, in coordination with the Rainbow Round Table's name change in 2019.

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