After I finished writing my second novel, my mother was the first person to read the whole thing through. “What’d you think?” I asked her, hungry for the gratuitous gush of maternal admiration over my skills as a writer and overall perfection as a daughter. “Hmm,” she said, pausing to consider. “I think your end needs a twist. And I liked the first novel you wrote better.” Welcome to the big, beautiful world of Beta Readers. Beta Readers are those who offer to read your work

For the past twelve years, I have been asking all my amazing friends each December to write a love letter to the year ahead, reflecting on the year just past. This prompt has brought about some of the most inspiring/hilarious/heartfelt words each and every year. I encourage you to write your own! They can be extremely cathartic and eye-opening. What are your writing or publishing goals for the year ahead? What are you willing to leave behind in 2018? Below is my personal Love

Social media writing groups are inundated with posts by excited writers exclaiming that they have written a draft of a novel and are now ready to publish! *Cue cringing* What I want to delicately remind these excited writers is that writing a novel draft is only the beginning. It is one of the most important things I try to teach my writing students: just because you have a first draft doesn’t mean you are ready to turn in the final. Now is the time to get your hands dirty--t

I am going to say something controversial here: I don’t believe in writer’s block. There you go. I said it. It’s something I’ve believed for a long time and as a writing professor, I have found, semester after semester, this to be true. I think "writer’s block" is an excuse used by the uninitiated--those who haven’t been writing long enough to recognize it for what it is. It’s just an excuse not to write. It's in the same family as: I’m too tired to write. The house needs to