After working on your memoir for a while, choosing which scenes will make it to the final draft and which to cut can be daunting. Sifting through hundreds of pages of material you know intimately to find what you really need can feel like rooting around a teenager’s very messy room: beloved T-shirts spill from […]
Victoria Schade is a dog trainer and speaker who serves as a dog resource for the media and has worked both in front of and behind the camera on Animal Planet, as a co-host on the program Faithful Friends and as a trainer and wrangler on the channel’s popular Puppy Bowl specials. She lives in […]
As an ex-teacher, I am no stranger to the word ‘burnout.’ Sometimes it felt like every term there was another member of staff taking time out of the profession or leaving it altogether because of the physical burnout they had suffered from the constant pressures of the job. And make no mistake, there are a […]
A native of Newcastle, Eliza Clark lives in London, where she previously attended Chelsea College of Art. She works in social media marketing and has worked for women’s creative writing magazine Mslexia. In 2018, she received a grant from New Writing North’s “Young Writers’ Talent Fund.” Her short horror fiction has been included in Tales […]
For some people, spooky season is about layering clothes, warm colors, and revisiting childhood favorites like the Goosebumps series, Casper, Hocus Pocus, and other scary-adjacent fair. For others, it’s a season to celebrate all things horror, from the scariest ghost stories to the goriest body horror narratives. (How to Write Scary Novels Infused With Fun […]
Charles John Huffam Dickens died on June 9, 1870, leaving the novel he was then writing only half finished. He penned the words that close the sixth installment (of a planned 12) on June 8; the next day he was dead. In the 150 years since, interest in The Mystery of Edwin Drood has been […]
Plot twist story prompts aren’t meant for the beginning or the end of stories. Rather, they’re for forcing big and small turns in the anticipated trajectory of a story. This is to make it more interesting for the readers and writers alike. Each week, I’ll provide a new prompt to help twist your story. Find […]
As journalists our goal is to provide accurate and valuable information, and there’s no better way of getting a story ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’ than through the Q&A style article. Not only does a Q&A present the interviewee’s viewpoint almost verbatim, it’s also one of the easiest article types for freelancers to pitch and […]
A few years ago I was a bridesmaid at my best friend’s wedding. She rented out a beautiful, remote house up in the hills of Temecula, California. On the eve of the ceremony, the bride and us bridesmaids were staying at the house, and just as the sun set over the distant Pacific, the power […]
Isle McElroy (they/them) is a non-binary author based in New York. Their writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, The Cut, GQ, The Guardian, Vogue, Bon Appétit, and other publications. They have received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Sewanee Writers […]
Writing short stories can help establish your credentials as a fiction writer. It will give you much-needed exposure to editors, literary agents, and readers. Some publications will even pay you for it. You know what else a short story can do for you? It can serve as a vehicle for experimentation when you’re writing a […]
Banter is hot right now, but don’t be fooled by characters pulling off witty dialogue. Mastering the art of verbal sparring may not come naturally, and that’s okay. This playful teasing is an unspoken test between two characters, each one asking without asking, Do we understand each other without explanation? This playful teasing has big […]
