Since announcing our first-ever "We Love New Novelists!" contest last week (five winners will have their first 2,000 words read by two literary agents and an editor -- the deadline is August 16th!), I've been thinking a lot about beginnings.  The entrants to the contest will win if, in the first 2,000 words of their works-in-progress, they can tantalize and intrigue our readers sufficiently to make them want…

She Writer Sandra Beasley writes about the publication of her first memoir on Meg Waite Clayton's 1st Books: Stories of How Writers Get Started today

I'm delighted to be hosting Sandra Beasley on 1st Books today. The Boston Globe calls Sandra's…

It was so wonderful to read all of your wishes in response to my birthday post for She Writes, where I shared my hopes for the my upcoming writing year.  I especially appreciated the encouragement and support you offered me and one another (and loved your idea, @RYCJ, of checking in with ten of the other…

Countdown to Publication: Week Four

I feel like the poster child of learning to write on-the-job—and I like it.  One of the most gratifying aspects of writing the Countdown to Publication blog has been the support of my sister (and brother) writers on She Writes. My journey to…

Available now on She Writes Radio... She Writes Founding partner Deborah Siegel and Dani Shapiro discussing time management and carving out time in the dark in a busy, social-media filled life. Listen to the whole show here!

Be sure to tune in on Monday for She Writes Radio with She Writes founder Kamy Wicoff and Nancy Miller

Countdown to Publication--Week Six

Father’s Day got me thinking about what my father taught me about writing, a lesson that I still value even though he passed away twenty-five years ago at age 54.

             He was fastidious about…

Available now on She Writes Radio, editor Alexandra Shelley (editor of Kathryn Stockett's "The Help") and literary agent Eleanor Jackson discussing revision, publishing, and how to know when a book is 'finished'. Listen to the whole show here!

If you're looking for tools and experts to help you with editing your project or your agent search, be…

         One of my dreams came true just a few days ago—I talked about my debut novel IF I BRING YOU ROSES at Chicago’s Printers Row Lit Fest.  My friend, the fabulous Tayari Jones, was on the same panel for her new novel…

I can write fast when I have to and the flow is there. I can write normal speed. I can also write so slowly and torturedly that it’s like the scene in Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox and his siblings are slowly disappearing from view: I am so stuck that the words aren’t just slow in…

This week's winner of our new "15K" contest -- which features the writer who refers the most new members each week from now until we hit 15,000 -- is MARGARET DUARTE!  (WE LOVE…

It may be virtual. It may be your SheWrites connection. It may be a real-live flesh-and-blood meet-where-you-live writers group. Whatever form it takes, whether you read each other’s work, or coach each other through the finding-an-agent, dealing-with-your-editor, marketing-your-book end of things, if you’re going to be a writer, and a daring writer at that, you need pals. You need allies. You need a writers group. 

Here are…

  To the vexations of matching creativity and thought-work with the ticking clock of daily life I have two things to offer. 

The first is a gentle organization of what we know about this conundrum.The second is a…

WRITE IT DOWN. SET IT FREE. Those were the words that AMY HARTL SHERMAN shared with us all in response to the SW…

I'm Miriam Peskowitz, author. In thirteen years as a professional writer,  I’ve penned obscure academic books. I have written passionately about motherhood in…

Tsuris (noun): trouble, aggravation, or misery



      I’ve just completed a memoir in essays I’m calling, How I Lost My Bellybutton and Other Naked Survival Stories, in which I try to make sense of the ridiculous amount of tsuris I’ve had in my fifty-seven years. As I begin sending it out into a publishing world that’s become quite weird, I’m feeling surprisingly Buddhist. Of course I want to entertain, illuminate, and move others with published work, but…

In my years as a memoir teacher, editor, and coach, and as a memoirist myself, I’ve found that the greatest challenge for a personal writer is to create work that is meaningful to others. And the most crucial question a personal writer can ask, and keep asking, her material in an effort to meet that challenge is, WHO CARES?

An inspiring, tough-love quote that any serious memoirist should put on a post-it above her…

Deborah Siegel, author/blogger and mama of toddler twins, shares notes and strategies on writing/life fit as she works toward her next thing.

Standing under the clock in Grand Central Station waiting for my friend to arrive, I breathed deeply.  All around me people were scurrying to their meetings and lunches (with their editor? their agent? their…

Learning how to stay disciplined, grappling with doubt, failure, and rejection, finding one’s voice, struggling to stay solvent—we’ve all dealt with these issues. It’s comforting to know that Charlotte Brontë, George Sand, Louisa May Alcott, and others did, as well. But in the end, it’s not so much about…