Writer's Digest

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Pulitzer Prize winner, Dayton Literary Peace Prize winner, finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award, and finalist for the National Book Award. His writing has been called bold, elegant, and fiercely honest. Along with teaching at th

Due to physical disability, I’m effectively house-bound. Even before the rest of you joined me on Team Stay-Home, I only got out for medical appointments and occasional (post-ATL-rush-hour) evening drives with my husband. For me, writing is a way to

Welcome to our special double-sized September/October issue! Our theme, “The Future Is …” is open-ended, allowing each of us to consider where our writing fits in this strange world. As we put this issue together, it was impossible to ignore the even

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Amy Jones SENIOR EDITORS Jeanne Veillette Bowerman, Robert Lee Brewer MANAGING EDITOR Cassandra Lipp ART DIRECTOR Wendy Dunning ILLUSTRATOR Danielle Lowery EDITORS-AT-LARGE Ericka McIntyre Tyler Moss Jessica Strawser CONTRIBUTING EDIT

NINA AMIR, the inspiration to creation coach, is a 19-time Amazon bestselling hybrid author of such books as How to Blog a Book, The Author Training Manual, and Creative Visualization for Writers as well as a host of e-book writing guides. She suppor

I’d like to lodge a complaint. As a kid growing up, I imagined my career choice of “writer” would be filled with adventure and private jets, possibly an estate in Hawaii where my own personal private detective would routinely borrow my sports car.1 E

As nonfiction writers, we know that framing this amorphous mess called reality is incredibly hard. What do we include? What do we leave out? Where do we begin? Where do we end? What goes in the middle, and in what order? These are key questions when

The huitain is a French poetic form that is quite musical when done well. Here are the basic rules: • Eight lines per poem (or stanza)• Eight to 10 syllables per line (but consistent within the poem)• Rhyme scheme: ababbcbc Here are a couple of examp

I’ve been writing since before I could write. As a toddler, I dictated stories (most concerning an imaginary owl) to my parents, who still have some saved on scraps. About 12 years ago, I was living in New York City and pursuing an MFA in creative wr

Chuck Palahniuk released his newest novel, The Invention of Sound, in September. In honor of this release, we’re revisiting Palahniuk’s 2007 interview with WD. When he tried to get his first novel published, some editors secretly loved the dark novel

I woke up the morning of my first keynote address filled with anxiety. I jumped out of bed in panic. The thought of standing on the stage while watching the audience staring at me escalated my terror. I paced the room repeating, “I cannot give this p

(Domestic thriller, July, Graydon House) “When a glamorous Big Pharma executive pleads guilty to a whistleblower lawsuit and goes to prison, she’s convinced someone in her family helped set her up—and she’ll do anything to bring them down.” WRITES FR

Creating Complex Motivations for Compelling Characters David Corbett—award-winning author of The Art of Character and The Compass of Character—will guide participants in a detailed examination of how to create, develop, and portray on the page compel

Does crime have a future? Or will the weapons and methods of the increasingly expansive security state—with its ubiquitous cameras and tracking devices, its increasingly sophisticated forensic science with genetic mapping and DNA matching—make crime

Dear FYSA, I didn’t really do my research on best practices before sending out a wave of queries and now I’m afraid I’ve undermined my novel’s chances with a few dozen of my top targets. I’ll look more amateurish if I send out follow-ups with better

In any given year, a shift occurs in how the film industry operates. Some changes are predictable, but others come out of nowhere. While no one could have anticipated what 2020 would drop on the world, we must take the reins and prepare for the new l

Here’s my confession: Every morning when I open my email, I feel guilty. At the end of the day, when I close my email and turn off my computer, I feel guilty then, too. No matter how hard I try, I feel like I can never answer emails as quickly as I w

WHAT SETS THE IOWA REVIEW APART FROM OTHER LITERARY PUBLICATIONS? The Iowa Review is located at the heart of the writing culture at the University of Iowa. An interest in writing permeates Iowa City from the undergraduate to the graduate level to the

When I think of the future of writers and writing, I often look to literary journals. It’s not that writers have to get published in literary journals to find success. Rather, it’s that many award-winning novelists tend to cut their teeth publishing

WHAT SETS SUBTROPICS APART FROM OTHER LITERARY PUBLICATIONS? I’d say our strengths are the quality of the work we select, the range of writers we publish (from stories by Nobel Prize winners to first appearances in print), the beautiful covers that o

Sponsored by the writing program at Lakeland University, this “celebration of writing” provides seasoned and emerging writers the opportunity to talk with peers, discuss their work, and learn from pros through workshops. Ed. note: The date of this co

How do you know when you’re at the point in your career that you might benefit from a writing conference? The question you’re really asking is: Should I invest in one? No matter where you are in your pursuits, attending a conference can be of benefit

• Keep in mind that there may be more than one workshop in each of the listings. • These workshops are listed alphabetically by state, country, or continent. • Unless otherwise indicated, rates include tuition (T) only. Sometimes the rates also inclu

One of the best things you can do to improve your writing is to read strong works in the same category. Follow the flow chart below to find book recommendations in a variety of fiction subcategories.