I woke up (just moments ago) with the proverbial pounding three am heart. I had a nightmare about trying to convince unresponsive authorities about young girls being attacked. The specifics of my nightmare don’t matter (is there anything more boring…

Recently, a thread in an online writer’s community popped up, beginning with someone (who hadn’t begun querying) asking why folks sent query letters to so many agents.

Did they have that many “dream…

Beyond the Margins, the multi-write site to which I belong, has finally persuaded Ryan Gosling to take time out of his busy schedule as an Internet meme to shine a little love our way. Give it up for a very special...Literary Ryan Gosling.…

“My definition (for myself) of a working title is: A title that doesn't work.” Robin Black

Picture having a baby. You named that baby so soon after conception. Dear little Lev. It’s the Russian version of…

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

For every moment of awe a writer has at seeing her book on a shelf, at being told by readers what comfort they found in your words, come the times when you read the word “blech” in a reader’s review. It’s part of the…

“I am not a hero. I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more—much more—during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the hearts of those of us who bear witness. Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then. More than twenty thousand Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. I willingly did what I could to help. My husband did as well. It was not…

A parent’s tragedy will always influence the life of their children—often to an overwhelming degree. Writing fiction from the emotional truth of one’s past can be liberating and also confusing. How do writers use their past without being wedded to…