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Listen up: You’re at your desk, right? Or your dining room table, or your kitchen table, or, in desperation, perched on a stool at the marble credenza in your bathroom, trying to write; plagued [...]

A publisher once told us that, halfway through an unpublished manuscript, she tries to predict how it will end. If she succeeds, she will likely pass on the manuscript or, if there is a lot to be [...]

Always dreamed of writing a novel, short story, memoir, or biography? Or maybe you’ve already got one in a drawer somewhere, and you can’t stop thinking about going back to it. [...]

Feeling creatively blocked? Here’s one way out. Join us for a morning of literary fun when we present our Saturday Writing Workshop. You’ll learn how to use description to maximum [...]

We like to say that the best beginning – of a book or short story – should contain a hook and a promise. Hook your reader, and promise them more. That’s fine in theory, posed one of our [...]

In December, Warner Bros releases Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. That bare announcement, long anticipated, was enough to get science fiction aficionados taking to social media in their thousands. Many [...]

It’s 8:17 on Friday morning. I’m sitting in our living room with the autumn sun streaming in, half blinding me. Through the sliding doors and the floor-to-ceiling windows I can see the rippling [...]

This is a counter-intuitive piece of writing advice.  After all, you want to get your writing out there, I know that. You do want to be read, even if only by family and friends. But I believe the [...]

We tend to associate research with non-fiction writing, and imagination with fiction. But in fact, both are required for both forms of writing. They’re closer than you might think. As writer [...]

Back in the misty dawn of time when I was a working journalist, two jokey truisms were common currency among hacks. “I love being a journalist. You meet so many interesting people … and they’re [...]

I was asked the other day what I would consider to be the “most important thing” a novice writer can do to improve her creative writing skills. Besides read, I asked? Her jaw became set and her [...]

Writers are born, not made. True or false? It’s an interesting question because it puts on the table the issue of whether bad writers can become good writers. On a recent webinar we suggested [...]