It’s Not the Pregnancy. It’s the Predictability
I’ve read a bunch of novels recently where an unwanted pregnancy is the plot’s load-bearing wall.
You CAN write a book!
Hard truths, solid tips, and zero fluff for fiction writers tired of spinning their wheels.
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Stop Asking Me to Prove I’m Not a Robot
On AI detectors, and why the burden of proof is landing on exactly the wrong person.
The Gift She Gave First
A librarian mother, a lake town with no TV, and the books that became my whole world.
The Em Dash Was Mine First
I have this conversation with writers at least once a week.
Are You Revising or Just Anxious? A Quick Test
You’d think revising, the hard part for most writers, is the thing everyone’s desperate to finish.
How to Write Characters Who Are Ridiculous Without Being Cartoons
I’ve been reading Carl Hiaasen this week because…escapism!
Where Did All the Funny Books Go?
I don’t think the publishing gods huddled in a bland conference room in some NYC skyscraper and said, let’s drain all the joy out of literature and see what happens. But somewhere between the rise of prestige television, the literary trauma memoir, and BookTok’s well-documented obsession with books that make you cry in public, funny stopped being a serious category.
Nobody Knows Anything. (And That’s the Book Marketing Problem.)
An author friend of mine emailed me a few weeks after her launch to report that her publisher’s marketing update had consisted of three words:
How Do You Actually Find Your Next Book?
Friends? BookTok? Library?
A Pep Talk for People Who Are Trying to Make Things While the World Is on Fire
(I am, obviously, talking to myself. So…welcome!)
“We Are an AI Inputs Company.” Okay. Now We Know. Thanks for sharing?
Mac Barnett, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, recently wrote that roughly 94.7 percent of children’s books are crud.
The Second Book Problem
Experience unwelcome.
Stop Insulting Teenage Girls. And While You're At It, Learn to Write One.
If You Serve Up a Cliché, You Better Bring a Side of Something Fresh
The Beta Reader Who Loves You Is Not Helping You
There’s a particular kind of feedback that authors collect in early drafts that feels so good it should probably be illegal.
The Knowing-Doing Gap (Or: Why I Keep Standing in My Own Way)
There's a word for knowing exactly what you need to do and doing everything else instead. It's called akrasia. Here's what actually helps.
Why Do You Write?
The publishing industry is chaos right now. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is go back to the simplest question: why do you write?
Your Romance Novel Is Now a TikTok.
Harlequin just licensed 40 romance novels for AI-generated microdramas. What does this mean?
Four Million Books. One Question.
How to survive the onslaught of AI generated book slop competing with your legitimate novel.
The Rabbit Hole (A Follow-Up on AI in Publishing)
What happens when the publishing pipeline is fully driven by AI? Selection, edited, sales, marketing, amd so one. Doesn't feel like anything good.
Are Publishers Letting AI Read Your Submission?
In a recent Publisher’s Weekly article about Macmillan’s newly appointed CTO, a new AI-driven product called Essence is described as helping “publishing teams understand and assess manuscripts more efficiently.”
Indie First, Traditional Later? A Shift Worth Noticing
The stigma was real.