John Gilstrap Writers, John Gilstrap thinks you should cut yourself a bit of slack. Let the story flow. Get comfortable in your own writer’s skin. Stop copying the style of other writers. Sure, learn the so-called rules, but don’t let them hold you back. Gilstrap, one of the keynote speakers at the 2019 edition of…
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Who is this Julie Forth, and why are we celebrating her?
On the day we celebrate our independence from tyranny, I’d like to discuss some books that remind us why, with all her flaws, the United States of America is, in my opinion, the most successful political experiment in the history of mankind. The following books remind us of the lofty and noble ideals upon which our…
Trespass
I knew I was in trouble the second I saw him take a picture. He wasn’t coming up the hill to greet me. He wasn’t coming up the hill to say “Howdy, partner” or “You must be my new neighbor.” No. His climbing posture said it all. He was coming up the hill with a sense of…
How to Write When You’re Not Writing
For the last 12 months, I worked in a sort of creative fever on my latest novel. When I wasn’t at my day job, I was writing. When I couldn’t be writing, I was brainstorming. When I stopped writing to sleep, I felt like I was still trapped in the fictional world, not really resting…
When life hands you lemons…write them into a story
I’ve been teaching a night class at the local community college about writing fiction with the intent to someday be published. Not teaching how to write, but exposing new writers to the concepts, lessons, rules, and “secrets” that, if I’d known them 20 years ago, would have saved me hundreds of hours of editing, rewriting,…