A friend told me about the professor who had most influenced her in her writing life.  "He said, 'Don't tell me you're a writer until you've got a check in your hand.'" My best advice to myself was to ignore her. I wonder if Emily Dickinson ever...

Thank you, profoundly, for writing up your experiences. I had an agent whose husband fell ill, and she retired. Another had a disagreement with her business (and possibly personal) partner, over my book, Daring to Date Again. I am thankful that they...

My feeling is that finding others who write about a similar theme is a good thing -- it's like a restaurant opening next to another restaurant, suddenly that's the street where you go to have dinner! Meeting others who came to the same conclusion I...

Good advice, but I wonder how many people would have time to read someone's complete writings before submitting anything to them. If you have to spend, perhaps, ten hours reading everything, or many things, that someone is writing before contacting...

Grammar is arbitrary and always changing; otherwise we'd be speaking like Beowulf (well, he wasn't exactly human, so like Shakespeare). The trick is knowing which grammar change is going to stick with us and which is not. Personally, I think "Me and...

Thanks for posting Nancy. I went to a reading by an Estonian author, Nancy Burke, as few months ago, and the Estonians were delighted that their story was finally coming to light.  Those niche audiences can be supportive through the low spots. My...

You underestimate yourself as a "trailblazer."  While you apparently do not recline in the lap of luxury, you belong with those people who had an idea and made it happen. The odds against you, and against any writer/publisher/agent are daunting. You...