Lately I've been writing book proposals for other people, and when one went out, two publishers responded right away. One offere...

    I sent my novel off to my agent last week -- electronically, but towards the end I can read it more objectively on paper, penci...

    I have been silent because I bought a tiny piece of land on a remote Scottish island and put this hut on it. The site and gard...

    I've asked the other Blue Rose Girls, and the contest now has a prize and lasts longer: the prize is the BRGs book of your ...

    An article in the NY TIMES once said we only have so much will power. I hadn't read the article but I guess I believed the...

    Yesterday I finally finished* the first draft of my novel and printed it out, planning to sit down, pencil in hand, and mark it ...

       You can listen to Roald's Dahls' answers here . The interview was given in 1988, two years before his death, in the gyp...

       Lately I've been coaching people writing fiction, and have noticed some big differences between published and unpublished ma...

       This came today, from a friend on the island: I don't know if you can see it, but the sign says "SOLD" -- sold ...

       As an author who submits to editors and a professional editor myself, I have questions for people on both sides of the editing p...

       " Anne and her family lived alone on an island. She enjoyed having tea time with her friends the spiny lobster and bab...

The beginning of this was familiar to me, but the nots at the end -- not even needing to believe in yourself, always feeling a "...

Linda Wingerter brought these beautiful eggs she'd made (photograph by Alvina) to an Easter party. Eggs have been used to celebrate bir...

Some friends and I were talking about re-reading books we had loved as children, and how some hold up and some don't. For me, LITTLE ...

An agent told me recently that when she looks over her list, the mss. that ended up selling the best are the ones that took longest to plac...

"Procrastination is the thief of time" -- I never knew Charles Dickens said that, though it's one of my favorite sayings. He...

As an author, I get editorial letters; as an editor, I write them. How do you handle them when you're the author? How do you want the...

Someone made a comment on Meghan's post yesterday that she was concerned not so much about the awards, but about "limitations that...

Quite often when adults hear that I write for children their first question is, “Are you going to write an adult novel?” This is always said...

I've heard of three people who set out to write best-sellers and actually did: Ian Fleming, Robin Cook -- a doctor who measured his ...