Word for Words Blog for Writers

Here's the latest in a series of dialogues between writers — this time with short story writer and novelist Connie Keller of A Merry Hea...

It's amazing how a simple conversation can spark a line of thought. That happened with friend, writer and multiple Hemingway style award...

Can you imagine Herman Melville's Moby-Dick starting with the line, "Call me Steve?" A dear writing pal and I were talking on...

It's January, the weather is bad or about to get bad, or worse. Your toe hurts, the cat's rubbed on everything you've just vac...

I recently read the draft of a novel where two-thirds of the way through, the characters were still unformed and unfamiliar. If I didn'...

I tend to scavenge writing magazines and pull the articles that are worthwhile, separating them into "read now" and "read la...

You know what it's like. You suddenly break out in a sweat because your story isn't working. You tell yourself it's your imagin...

Sometimes you wonder whether a story is fiction or whether it really happened. After hearing "The Mappist" by Barry Lopez on NPR...