The Self-Made Writer

What’s the oldest book about writing that’s still on your shelves? Mine is Strunk and White’s  The Elements of Style , the third edition (it...

Pacing sounds like the easiest thing in the world: speed up, slow down. You know, like an accelerator. Au contraire, my dear writers. Pa...

When I first began publishing, I coveted the qualities of a real writer: persistence, diligence, tenaciousness, enthusiasm, confidence, humi...

Description has a bad rap: bland, boring, basic. But it's also true that description is often overdone, or done badly. In   Thanks, ...

Emotion is among the few things we don’t have to be taught, assuming that all the normal synapses are firing. No one has to tell us how to b...

“I’m in love,” says  Reagan Arthur , editor of the eponymous imprint at Little Brown Books. “I can’t wait to see what happens next.” T...

Recently I re-read Marilynne Robinson’s  Housekeeping , one of the finest American books of the past few decades. Some will disagree heartil...