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I was asked recently if I had any good writing advice I might share.  I’m afraid I fell back on that old wheeze, “Write what you know,” because there’s truth in it, and also because I couldn’t think of anything better.  This advice, while valid, gets tricky in the case of genre writing – if you grow up quietly in a small town in Iowa, as I did, and what you love to read is mystery novels...in particular tough-guy private eye novels...how exactly do you apply that advice, anyway?  I had never worked my way to Europe on a tramp steamer, le

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Contains Spoilers

This month saw the release of Jonathan Levine’s adaptation of Isaac Marion’s zombie romance novel Warm Bodies.

[record scratch]

Hold up – zombie romance? Yep, that’s what I’m telling you. Isaac Marion’s book is a Night of the Living Dead take on Romeo and Juliet. Romero and Juliet, if you will. (You probably won’t, and who could blame you?)

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Let's talk about failure.

Failure is, after all, the great unmentionable. We pay no attention to failure until we see some cultural or corporate Goliath fall to its knees. Enron goes down, we pay attention. The United States invades Iraq — and things go a little wrong — sure, we're watching. Critics of the West's celebrity culture often point out how the media sensationalizes the trivial and, by omission, trivializes what is of true importance.

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It’s a dangerous position to qualify solidarity. Those with whom you stand will feel as though your inability or lack of desire to come over completely to their side indicates a weakness of character, or that it calls into question your stated loyalties altogether. Those to whom you find yourself opposed are likely to feel the same way, although they might add insult to injury by insinuating that you are perhaps too stupid to realize what your position is, and that you were really with them in the first place.

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Navigating the rough terrain of today’s publishing industry shouldn’t be a solo event. This week in Ask the Agent, I’ll explore and dissect two of the industry’s mysteries, straight from the shoulder.