I recently saw a meme regarding Little Women and Jo’s $100 prize for winning a short story contest. According to the meme, the truly sad part of Little Women is it shows writers that rates for short stories haven’t changed in the past 100 years. While there may be some truth to this, there are … Continue reading How To Sell Short Stories for Good Money
Undeniably, short stories are difficult to master. After all, while a novel has enough room for you to write expansively, a short story only affords you around 1,000 to 10,000 words with which to introduce your world, tell your tale, and wrap it up. As prolific author and now fellow Minnesotan Neil Gaiman puts it, … Continue reading 5 Short Story Writing Tips from Professional Authors
Getting your short story published is often more difficult than actually writing the story. Even with thousands of literary magazines accepting short stories for publication, you still have less than a 10% chance of getting your story published any time you submit. Unless you know exactly how to submit a short story. With a smart … Continue reading How to Submit a Short Story
There are thousands of literary magazines accepting short story or poetry submissions right now. For writers, this means a lot of opportunity. It also means a lot of questions. Here are some of those questions you're probably asking right now about where you should send your writing for publication: Which publications are worth submitting to? … Continue reading Which literary magazines should you submit to? A guide to evaluating lit mags
Having your writing published is a huge accomplishment. Whether we’re talking about a short story published in an online journal or a big book deal, any publication is a big deal and should make you proud. Having your writing rejected, on the other hand, can leave you frustrated and make you think you aren’t good … Continue reading 3 Reasons Your Writing Hasn’t Been Published Yet
Earning a living from short fiction or poetry is about as easy as earning a living from recycling aluminum cans and plastic bottles. Actually, it's probably harder. In some states, a plastic bottle will get you five or ten cents, but your thoughts are only worth a penny. Your short stories and poetry are often … Continue reading 5 Things You Must Do Before Submitting a Fiction or Poetry Collection
As writers, we tend to get pretty excited at the prospect of publication. Oftentimes, an acceptance is such a relief that we'll take it no matter what. However, sometimes an acceptance isn't in our best interest. We have to step back from the excitement and look at the fine print to make sure we aren't … Continue reading Do You Know Your Rights as a Writer?
Gay Degani recently asked me to share some insight about my characters by responding to five questions. Here we go: 1. What Surprises You About Your Characters? And why? How little they represent me and the people I know. Oftentimes, my characters are nothing like me at all. Take the husbands in my recently released … Continue reading Merry-Go-Blog-Around: About Characters
One week from today, on what happens to be my 32nd birthday (that's February 20th for those looking to send me a gift), my first short story collection will be published in both e-book and print by Martian Lit. The collection (as I’ve mentioned) is titled Nagging Wives, Foolish Husbands, and features 24 stories that … Continue reading 24 Reasons That Don’t Explain Why I Titled My Short Story Collection “Nagging Wives, Foolish Husbands”
Anyone who maintains a blog that consists primarily of words knows how hard it can be to constantly come up with new posts. Even more difficult, of course, is finding the time to write a new post every week (or whatever your blog schedule may be). This is especially challenging for fiction writers who would … Continue reading The Value of a Guest Post
