Every time I tell someone I write horror, I feel compelled to add “but not like slasher horror.” Often I find it easiest to describe what something is not as a means of paring down to the thing’s essence. Why I feel the need to justify my writing as “not slasher” or “not too gory”…
During a podcast interview last week, my guest remarked that, though she’d won two prestigious awards for her women’s fiction debut, she wasn’t sure she’d enter any competitions for her next book. Since most awards charge a fee of between $50-$150 per category, she questioned whether that was a wise use of money. And there’s…
‘Tis the season… no, not that season. The other one. The spooky one. The one with witches and pumpkins and yellow-eyed cats and headless horsemen. And ghosts. Oh, we all love a good ghost story, don’t we? Those stories that send little tingles running along the back of our neck? Or that have us glancing…
The first time I offered my manuscript for a trial developmental edit was through a conference, and I couldn’t have been luckier. The editor who reviewed my first chapter, for a fee of 40 dollars, later devoted a half hour of thoughtful in-person follow up, knew my genre well and was writing in it himself,…
Ten Things This sticker. Is it perfect or what? Courtesy of Erin Flanagan. Erin won Best First Novel at the Edgar Awards (Mystery Writers of America) this year. Her novel, Deer Season, is unique. Yes, it’s a mystery. But it’s not written as a mystery. Proof that the “rules” are bendable, malleable, there to be…