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Writing the Story of Your Heart: Even When the Odds Aren’t in Your Favor
By Flickr’s Sergiu Bacioiu Today’s guest is Aisha Saeed—an author, mama, lawyer, teacher, and maker and drinker of chai. She is also the Vice President of Strategy for We Need Diverse Books™. While...
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Stereotypical Perspectives
Today we’re thrilled to have Kristina McMorris join us as our guest. Kristina is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and the recipient of more than twenty national literary awards, as...
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Writing for a Western Audience
Please join us in welcoming guest Maha Gargash to Writer Unboxed. An Emirati born in Dubai to a prominent business family, Maha studied abroad in Washington, D.C., and London. With a degree in...
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The Myth of the Average Reader
Photo by George A. Spiva Center for the Arts There is no such thing as the “average reader.” I usually see references to this mythic creature — the average reader — in one of two contexts. First: “I’m...
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Where Romance Has the Advantage, Hands Down
Image – iStockphoto: AH 86 A Minority-Run Industry Nielsen staged its inaugural Romance Book Summit yesterday (July 14) at the Romance Writers of America’s (RWA) conference in San Diego. We knew we’d...
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Doing Diversity Right
Can writers in the dominant culture be confident that they are speaking authentically, meaningfully, and vitally about this real America? In September at Bouchercon, Sisters in Crime held a workshop...
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Political Correctitude
Image – iStockphoto: udra Ye Merry Gentlepeople In my boyhood, the members of my father’s church put a lot of effort each year into their presentation of the congregation’s crèche. “Real hay!” marked...
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Big Issues. Small Stories.
Our social media feeds are cluttered with the significant yet chaotic issues of the day. Either we’re resisting or resisting the resistance. I’ve engaged in a war of words on occasion via Facebook and...
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Art and Social Change
Nostalgia by Flickr user TMAB2003 I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately. If the popularity of books and movies like Ready Player One, as well as the constant stream of remakes, reboots, and sequels are...
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How to Write Fiction That’s Fresh
My agent recently had a confab with a number of editors in New York, all from various houses. I can’t tell you the details of which house wants what (she’d kill me) but I can say this: what everyone is...
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Critiquing for Shades of Gray
When Erin Bartels and I agreed to be critique partners, we knew we had similar writing sensibilities and a commitment to telling emotionally resonant stories. Interestingly, both of our debut novels...
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Going Humbly
In the February, 2019 issue of Writer’s Digest, I lead a roundtable discussion on the issue of what it’s like to be a writer of color in the crime genre. The contributors are Danny Gardner, Kellye...
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Mining Reader Reviews for Story Gold
If you’re already a published author, you may not want to do this. It can be painful. Since my novel isn’t published yet, I can do it for you. When my author friends read their Goodreads and Amazon...
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Whose Character Is It Anyway?
Photo by Pexels via Pixabay Free License Recently my latest creative pursuit, a departure from my stalled work in progress, has started bumping against a writerly controversy about which I had...
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What White Writers Should Know About Telling Black Stories
We often live in different communities and socialize in separate circles, and yet when it’s time to write our novels, a few daring souls attempt to cross the racial divide. As a Black writer, I must...
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Publishing in a Pandemic: An Insider Interview with a Book Publicist
The first half of this year has been a monumental test in flexibility and resilience for authors and everyone in publishing. My debut novel, The Kindest Lie, will release on February 9, and that...
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Diversity in Publishing
The winner of the prestigious Booker Prize this year is Douglas Stuart, a New York resident who originally comes from Scotland. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, is a heartbreaking story of a mother of...
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Critiquing for Shades of Gray
When Erin Bartels and I agreed to be critique partners, we knew we had similar writing sensibilities and a commitment to telling emotionally resonant stories. Interestingly, both of our debut novels...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Going Humbly
In the February, 2019 issue of Writer’s Digest, I lead a roundtable discussion on the issue of what it’s like to be a writer of color in the crime genre. The contributors are Danny Gardner, Kellye...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mining Reader Reviews for Story Gold
If you’re already a published author, you may not want to do this. It can be painful. Since my novel isn’t published yet, I can do it for you. When my author friends read their Goodreads and Amazon...
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