A Washington Post review of The Magic Words

Mary Quattlebaum of the Washington Post gave a very kind review to The Magic Words last Thursday:

Above this bubbling stew of hope and ambition, Cheryl B. Klein floats like a craft-focused fairy godmother with “The Magic Words.” This book is a well-organized master class for serious writers seeking solid instruction. . . .  Klein brings a wealth of experience to this guide. As the executive editor at the Arthur A. Levine imprint of Scholastic Books, she has worked with acclaimed authors very different in tone and style, including Bill Konigsberg, Francisco X. Stork and Lisa Yee. And she has proved herself highly capable of helping authors succeed. . . . The sheer size of “The Magic Words” contradicts the still-too-persistent myth that writing for children is somehow “lesser” or “easier” than writing for adults. Klein ranges far beyond simple character-trait checklists and plot diagrams to substantively consider story premise, structure, openings, pacing, voice and characterization. The 18 chapters move logically from basic principles to revising and publishing. Exercises stretch the mind and skills.

To read the whole thing, click here. 

Newsletter Archive

I realized recently I didn't have a consistent archive of all of my newsletters (which are published roughly once every couple of months, full of chat and cats; you can sign up at the bottom of the page here). I'll keep updating it with new issues going forward.  

,

Interviews, Articles, and Reviews on THE MAGIC WORDS

,

I'm setting up this post as a one-stop-shop repository of all the interviews I've done for and writing I've been doing around The Magic Words, as well as the book's professional reviews. It will be updated as appropriate.

Interviews with Me

Writing by Me

Reviews of the Book

  • Time magazine: "Magic Words aims to be a master class. . . . Klein deconstructs the seemingly obvious (clear plotlines, sympathetic characters) to reveal the technical intricacies of beloved classics. . . . The Magic Words is more than a handbook. It is also a timely social commentary on the responsibility YA writers have to young adults."

  • The Washington Post: 'Above this bubbling stew of hope and ambition, Cheryl B. Klein floats like a craft-focused fairy godmother with “The Magic Words.” This book is a well-organized master class for serious writers seeking solid instruction.' 

  • Booklist magazine (starred review): "For anyone wishing to write for young readers, Klein's remarkable new book will be a sine qua non, an indispensable, authoritative guide to the act, art, and craft of creation." 

  • Library Journal magazine (starred review): "Wonderful . . . The volume also distinguishes itself from other similar titles with its wealth of exercises, each provocative, proven, and sure to write the ship . . . The new go-to guide for aspiring middle-grade and YA authors." 

  • Kirkus Reviews: "As executive editor at the Arthur A. Levine Books imprint of Scholastic, Klein has edited such well-regarded titles as Millicent Min, Girl Genius, by Lisa Yee (2003), Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork (2009), and If I Ever Get Out of Here, by Eric Gansworth (2013). With this substantial volume, she distills years of experience into an intensely practical, appealingly conversational manual."

  • Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana:  "Klein has plenty of experience with what does and doesn’t work in a book, but she admits in her intro that 'I’ve found writing a book on "how to write children’s and young adult fiction" as humbling and delightful as writing about "what humanity is like" or ‘how to live your life.”' It’s therefore with humor and generosity that she lays out an almost step-by-step guide to writing a children’s/YA book, offering advice, guidance, and exercises."

  • Bookpage.com: "This is the kind of straightforward and knowledgeable feedback that can take writers years to receive in the literary marketplace."

  • TeachingAuthors.net: "Readers close the book smarter about story, craft, genre and format possibilities, children’s book literature and publishing, as well as smarter about themselves as writers."

 

Q&A of the Month: Quiet Books

Q. Is there a market for quiet books or do they all have to be LOUD to be signed? -- Gary

A. Hmm. What I would say is, we are in a very crowded book market, with, if I recall correctly, 300,000 new books published professionally in the United States last year alone. In such a market, books have to stand out in some way, in order to give both booksellers and our end consumer -- the reader / book buyer -- a reason to purchase the book. That method of standing out could be the book's exciting plot, its unusual subject matter, its marvelous writing, its author (as brand-name authors like John Green or Linda Sue Park have enough of a reputation to stand out no matter the nature of the book itself), any gimmicks that are built into it (like the photos in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children) . . . Whatever might distinguish the book to a librarian flipping through a catalog or a child surveying a shelf. 

In practice, the most common method by which a book stands out is its book's plot, because it's the element of writing we can all talk about most easily, and opinions about what makes "marvelous writing" differ so widely from person to person. If your book doesn't have a LOUD plot -- if its events are pretty everyday -- then you need to make the characterizations and delineations of those events as rich and meaningful to us readers as they are to the characters themselves, and then the quiet everydayness will become LOUD because we love your people so much and we're so deeply invested in what happens to them. (I'm thinking of Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell here, Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca L. Stead, Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eager, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo....) Such a book can definitely sell -- both to a publisher and to readers -- and even be more beloved than loud books, because the experience of them is so much more intimate and precious. However, if you aren't a writer who goes into that much literary depth, it might be better to concentrate on developing a louder plot.  

A Wonderful Release Day, with Gratitude

The Magic Words was officially published today, and it's been a wonderful day, with messages from old friends and perfect strangers sharing their excitement about the book. I treated myself to a fine latte this morning (La Colombe on Lafayette St.); my coworkers brought cupcakes for our imprint meeting (Georgetown Cupcakes on Mercer); and I enjoyed quasi-bibimbap for dinner (Korilla on St. Mark's Place, where I previously ate on the Greatest Day Ever Excluding My Wedding Weekend*; this seems like a good celebratory habit).

I also sent out my monthly newsletter this morning (sign up at the bottom of the page here), and as the thanks in it will be eternal, I reproduce them below.

As a download of pretty much my entire editorial brain up to March 2016, The Magic Words is the product of every book I ever read, every class I took involving narrative, every conversation I had with friends analyzing our differing takes on a story. I have a long list of acknowledgments in the back, including my husband James and the Marlster, and I mean every word. But the book's actual existence in the world can be traced to six people in particular:

My grandfather, Philip Sadler. My late Papa was a professor of children's literature at what is now the University of Central Missouri, and the founder of its Children's Literature Festival. Thanks to his influence, I grew up with an endless supply of books and hungry for a literary life, which led to my study of literature in college and eventually my job at Scholastic. (I wrote about his influence on me at length in my talk here.) He paid for the design costs on Second Sight, and while he passed away before the final book was produced, he knew that it was dedicated to him. I keep the picture below in my office, taken for a librarians' magazine in, I think, 1983; our t-shirts say "WRITING IS HARRD WORK," and I'm grateful I was able to become a published writer, thanks to him.

My parents, Alan and Becky Klein. My mom and dad encouraged me to read, gave me the freedom to be my dorky book-loving self, and supported my education in Minnesota and my move to New York City (both big departures from Kansas City). When I self-published Second Sight, my mom became my warehouse manager, overseeing my stock of books and shipping them out as necessary for the last five and a half years. If there is such a thing as "parental privilege" -- the undeserved good luck of being born to terrific parents -- I have it in spades, and I'm endlessly grateful for their love and care. 

My boss, mentor, and friend, Arthur A. Levine. In August 2000, I came to New York to interview for publishing jobs, and the legendary Susan Hirschman of Greenwillow Books put me in touch with Arthur, who was seeking an editorial assistant. I had a terrible, terrible interview with him because I was so desperately nervous and (as a Harry Potter fan already) I wanted the job so much; but he recognized my nervousness and was kind enough to let me write some sample reader's reports, which won me the position. From Arthur I learned how to analyze a manuscript, take apart a picture book, communicate with authors, write a reject letter and flap copy, advocate for a project in-house -- all of the hundred little things editors do every day -- and I still learn from his bravery, his tenacity, and his absolute faith in beauty and the reader's emotional experience. (And he's an author too; look for his new picture book, Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!, illustrated by Katie Kath) For my editorial education and the opportunity to be a part of the publishing world, I'm grateful to Arthur. 

My agent, Brianne Johnson. Bri called me to pitch a manuscript in November 2014 and mentioned how much she liked Second Sight, and I blurted out something like, "Do you think you could sell a revision of it?" There was a brief pause where I knew exactly what was going through her brain: Hmm, good book, but self-published, so it's been out there.... No national distribution or e-book, a good platform, solid reviews.... All the thoughts a smart publishing person would have in assessing the project. Then she said, "Let's get together and talk about it," and that started a marvelous ongoing relationship. Bri has wide-ranging and excellent taste, an eye for the unconventional, and joyful enthusiasm, which is a useful counterbalance to a slightly diffident author like me. (Another one of her clients is also publishing a book today, my Scholastic co-worker Rafi Mittlefehldt, whose YA novel It Looks Like This is a 2016 Indies Introduce selection.) Bri's faith and encouragement literally made The Magic Words happen, and I'll always be grateful for that.  

My editor at W. W. Norton, Amy Cherry. I talked with three editors about The Magic Words, looking for someone who would be as tough on me as I can be on my authors, and when Amy said, "Oh, I'm very hands-on," I knew who I wanted to publish with. She line-edited the book in depth, pushed me to rewrite one troublesome essay multiple times, and with her design staff crafted a beautiful, perfect package for the book. For taking me on and talking me through my own book's publication, I'm grateful to Amy. 

If you read The Magic Words, please know that the hands, hearts, efforts, and minds of all of these people have touched the book and helped make it what it is. If you like it, remember them; if not, well, you can blame me entirely. I hope very much that you do enjoy it, and it will help you write your own good books down the line. Thank you, as always, for your time and attention.

__________________________________________________

* The Greatest Day Ever Excluding My Wedding Weekend was April 17, 2015, when I got a new iPhone 6; met Amy in person for the first time when we had lunch at my favorite restaurant, Balaboosta; ate at Korilla; and then, via the cancellation line, saw Hamilton at the Public Theatre, fourth row center, all original cast -- thanks to Melissa Anelli, with whom I afterward kvelled over the show with wine. Holy jeebus, that was a good day.  

Win a Full Manuscript Critique from Me!

The Magic Words is now one week out from publication, and to mark the event, I'm upping the stakes for preorders: If you submit proof of purchase, you'll be entered to win a full manuscript critique from me! I'll read your ms., write up editorial notes or have a phone consultation with you (your choice), and line-edit ten pages of the text. To be entered to win:

  1. Purchase The Magic Words from a retailer of your choice by 12:01 a.m. on 9/11/2016. (If you've already bought it, great!) You can buy it from:
    1. The Strand (Order here if you're planning to come to my launch event at the Strand on September 7.)
    2. Reader's World in Lee's Summit, MO (Order here if you're planning to come to my launch event in Kansas City on September 20.)
    3. In person at the Bookmarks Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, on September 10. 
    4. Amazon
    5. Barnes & Noble
    6. Indiebound
    7. Apple
    8. Powell's
  2. Take a picture or screenshot of your receipt and e-mail it to asterisk [dot] bks [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line THE SQUIDS ARE COMING! [YOUR NAME] Do this by 12:01 a.m. on 9/12/2016. 
    1. (The subject line is a reference to a VERY old joke from my blog where I referred to submissions as SQUIDs, for Submissions, Queries, and Unidentified Interesting Documents.)
    2. Kindly do not be a smartass:  Change "[YOUR NAME]" to your actual name. 
  3. I'll hold the drawing a week later, on 9/19, and notify the winner shortly thereafter.
  4. Fine print:  This offer is entirely transferable if you want to give the opportunity to a friend. You do not have to have a completed ms. by 9/19; the ms. can be sent at a later date. I reserve the right to take four months from the day you send the ms. to read and respond. I will also happily critique manuscripts for adult readers, though it's not my expertise.
  5. The Preorder Question Offer also still applies! In short:  When you send me your e-mail, include any question you'd like to ask an editor, and I'll respond here or in my newsletter (which, hey, you can join at the bottom of this page).

want to get a taste of the book? Check out this excerpt, or the Booklist review. 

Thanks for your interest all around, and I hope you enjoy the book!

,

Upcoming Appearances

,

Many fun things are happening for The Magic Words in the next two months! You can find me at all of these events:

August 13-14:  Writer’s Digest Annual Conference in New York City. I’ll give a talk called “YA Fiction:  What It Is, Why It's Hot, and How to Break Through.” The Magic Words will be available for sale for the first time at the conference bookstore.

September 7, 7-8 p.m.:  The Strand Bookstore in New York City. I'll participate in a panel on writing and publishing great children’s and YA books with Alvina Ling, VP and Editor-in-Chief, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Kass Morgan, author of The 100 series; Brooks Sherman, agent, the Bent Agency; and moderated by Eliot Schrefer, author of many excellent books, including the National Book Award nominees Endangered and Threatened. This will pretty much be the launch party for The Magic Words, so I'd be delighted if you were there!

September 10:  The BookMarks Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I’ll give a presentation on “Writing for Kids and Teens” and participate in two “Slush Pile Live” sessions (aka first page sessions), as well as doing a book signing. The festival is free, with a terrific lineup of authors, including Kate DiCamillo, Joseph Bruchac, Jacqueline Woodson, Lauren Tarshis, Sarah J. Maas and Renee Ahdieh, Victoria Schwab . . . It’ll be quite a day! (And somewhere in there, I’ll need to get barbecue.) Full schedule here.

September 13:  New York Metro SCBWI. I'll moderate a panel called “Crossing the Desk:  Editors Who Write," featuring Daniel Ehrenhaft, editorial director of Soho Teen and author of many YA novels, including The Wessex Papers; Andrea Davis Pinkney, editor-at-large, Scholastic Press, and author of many books for children, including A Poem for Peter:  The Story of Ezra Jack Keats; and Jill Santopolo, editorial director at Philomel Books/Penguin Random House, and author of two YA novels and many middle-grade books, including the Sparkle Spa series. Is it possible to separate the authorial and editorial mindsets—and if so, how? How does it feel for an editor to be edited, and what lessons have they taken from their publishing experiences? In this panel featuring four editors who write, we’ll discuss the pleasures and challenges of doing both kinds of creative work. You can buy tickets here.

September 20, 6-8 p.m.:  Cass County Library Northern Resource Center, 164 Cedar Tree Square, Belton, Mo. My hometown book launch will also be a fundraiser for the Cass County Public Library Foundation. (There may also be another event in Kansas City.)

September 21, 7 p.m.:  Left Bank Books, St. Louis, Missouri. I’ll give a presentation and sign books. 

September 27:  Park Slope Barnes and Noble in Brooklyn, New York. Presentation and signing.  

,

In Which I Disagree with Maggie Nelson about Relateability (Somewhat)

,

The Spring 2016 issue of Rattle magazine features an interview with the writer Maggie Nelson, who won massive acclaim in 2015 for her adult memoir The Argonauts. In the interview, she says: 

My mom teaches adult book groups, which is what I was getting at in saying that she came back around the long way to her background in literature. A lot of the time she teaches international literature, and some of her book groups, which are often full of white folks in the Bay Area with time and money to spend on book groups, will tell her, “I can’t relate.” Which you also get a lot in the undergraduate classroom. And my mom sometimes has to read them the riot act, tell them that relating is not the number one thing you’re looking for in the reading of literature. Which is back to this question about universalist projects. Often a lot doesn’t change when you just keep telling someone, for example, “I can’t relate to your experience with cops, that’s not my experience.” Well, that’s fine, listen to what they’re telling you about what their experience with cops is like and you might learn that it’s not equally distributed. You don’t learn anything by just insisting that your experience be the template for all others, but that’s a very common position for people, especially those in power who don’t want to hear. 

“Tell them that relating is not the number one thing you’re looking for in the reading of literature.” This sentence caught my attention, in part because this passage appears in The Magic Words:

About every six months, regular as the seasons, we see an upsurge of an old argument in the literary community about whether protagonists need to be “relatable.” Many adult literary novelists take offense at the very idea, saying that, as artists, their highest calling is fidelity to reality as they see it, and reality includes a large number of unpleasant people. (These people sometimes include adult literary novelists.) Some readers dismiss a protagonist as “unrelatable” if the character’s groundwork differs from theirs—their gender, skin color, sexual orientation, or country of origin. Those people are bad readers. Other readers—perhaps the vast majority of the casual reading public—just look for protagonists to be “likable,” which usually means the protagonist is a pleasant person who acts in a manner the reader regards as right. Such inoffensive characters allow readers to slip unobtrusively into their skins and enjoy the action of the book. 

I fall in the middle of this continuum, as I do feel strongly that if you’re writing fiction, especially for children or young adults, your protagonist should be relatable. But what makes a character relatable, in my view, is that the person is a full and credible human being, with all the strengths and vulnerabilities that implies: a love for something that can be taken away; a body, prone to embarrassment, injury, pleasure, and lust; fear of loss, of failure, of death; goofiness, stubbornness, blind spots, private jokes; a mind and heart unique in all the world. As a human being, I have all of these traits, so if an author can show me these qualities (or hundreds of other possible traits) operating realistically within a character, I’ll believe in and relate to that person. I might not like this person, particularly if she’s whiny or mean, but if I recognize the humanity in her, I can relate to her. When I can’t relate to a character, it’s usually because her emotions or vulnerabilities feel hidden from me somehow; her qualities don’t cohere in a credible manner; or she hasn’t been drawn with this much dimensionality altogether.

Why does relatability matter in children’s and young adult fiction? Well, pleasure can come from a number of factors in adult literary fiction—beautiful writing, a strong plot, an exploration of an idea or emotion, a connection to a character. But children’s and YA fiction operates a little differently. Child readers might not always appreciate lyrical writing because they’re struggling simply to decipher the words. Both child and YA readers like strong plots, but plots matter only because of characters—because we worry about our protagonist and we want to see her achieve her desire. We won’t worry about someone we don’t care about. Moreover, as children’s and YA books usually focus on a character’s emotional growth as he or she comes to a better understanding of the world, we readers need to be invested in the protagonist to want to see that growth happen. All of these factors point toward one conclusion: Whatever the other pleasures your novel offers, in children’s and YA publishing you need a protagonist who will capture the interest of readers—someone to whom they can relate.  

So I differ from Ms. Nelson in that I do think the reader’s ability to establish an emotional connection with a character — e.g., relatability — is important in children’s and YA literature, perhaps even “the number-one thing," to use her term. (This might also be a difference between children’s/YA and adult literature, I acknowledge.) But as I thought about the whole of what she was saying, I realized that we almost always talk about “relatability” in literature as if it’s entirely the writer’s responsibility to create a person relatable to the reader. But the reader must be willing to be part of that relationship—to listen to what the character has to offer, and to be open to the character holding some truth beyond the reader’s personal experience. An unwillingness to listen, or a lack of that openness, is what makes someone a bad reader, as I say in the first paragraph above. I think children can quite often be the best readers, because they have just enough understanding of the world to know what’s real vs. not-real (they’re great bullshit detectors, in short), while the rest is all openness to narrative and human possibility. 

A relationship always requires effort on both sides. If one of your beta readers complains that your character isn’t relatable, it’s always good to look at the character to see if he’s believable and where his vulnerabilities are shown on the page, to be sure those elements are coming out as you intend; but you might also suss out if that reader is willing to work. If they aren’t, find better readers.

, ,

Theatre Review: CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION at Mile Square Theatre

, ,

A review by my Narrative Breakdown cohost James Monohan. 

CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION
By Annie Baker
Directed by Chris O’Connor
Through July 2nd
Mile Square Theatre, Hoboken, NJ

Before The Flick (2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and John cemented playwright Annie Baker’s status as one of Off-Broadway’s most mesmerizing playwrights, Circle Mirror Transformation earned Baker and frequent director Sam Gold an equivalent amount of breathless praise, including Obie Awards for New American Play, Ensemble, and Director. Those who missed CMT’s original storied run at Playwright Horizons, or any other rendition of this five-character dramedy, should run to catch the thoroughly charming production at the Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken before it closes on July 2nd. 

The play follows a six-week acting class in small-town Vermont, led by Marty (Obie winner Deborah Headwall), a warm and spiritual type who leads her students through exercises that resemble awkward therapy sessions more than anything you would find at Juilliard. Marty’s students include her own troubled husband James (Jon Krupp); grouchy but ambitious high schooler Lauren (Annette Hammond); Theresa (Taylor Graves), a thirtysomething, free-spirited woman on the rebound from a breakup; and Schultz (Matthew Lawler), a recently divorced carpenter who becomes besotted with Theresa. 

One hopes that Baker never actually observed the artistically and ethically questionable tactics employed by this community center drama teacher, exercises that involve students having their most painful and darkest laundry hung out in front of near-strangers. But as one audience member observed, most of these games can be found in your average improv class. Whether contrived or not, the interactions that these lessons spawn are increasingly hilarious, the laughs coming from truthful, character-based moments. By the end, you may be surprised by just how much you’ve come to care about this motley group. 

Director Chris O’Connor has a sensitive ear and navigates Baker’s rhythms with aplomb. And the vignettes are tied together brilliantly by the pitch-perfect music of sound designer Matt Bittner. This production is part of Mile Square Theatre’s first full season in its new building. Only a twelve-minute bus ride from midtown, the cozy intimacy of the space feels more appropriate for Baker’s Green Mountain state setting than anything in Manhattan.

Visit the theatre's website and buy tickets here. 
    

The First Professional Review of THE MAGIC WORDS . . .

. . . is a starred review, from YA expert Michael Cart at Booklist, and it makes me really happy:

For anyone wishing to write for young readers, Klein’s remarkable new book will be a sine qua non, an indispensable, authoritative guide to the act, art, and craft of creation. An editor for 15 years, Klein clearly knows her apples about the writing—and publishing—process and demonstrates an extraordinary gift for analyzing it, breaking it into its constituent parts, and reducing those parts to other parts until an essential kernel of truth is uncovered. “Keep digging down until that inner truth is revealed,” she advises. Klein then shows how that truth can be applied practically and strategically, guiding the reader through, for example, eight principles of plotting, six of writing outside our experience, 10 strategies to build relatability or “compellingness” into characters, etc. The book should come with a warning, though: it’s not for the lazy because reading its generous contents (more than 350 detail-packed pages) requires careful attention and concentration; moreover, the inclusion throughout of exercises invites the reader to become the writer, interacting with the text. “Have characters make choices and DO THINGS,” Klein counsels; clearly the same can be said of her readers. Finally, though her focus is on chapter, middle-grade, and young adult books, her sage advice can be applied to writers for any age, who will—justifiably—treasure it.

Woot woot! Just three more months till it's out. Preorder information here. 

 

Welcome to the New Cherylklein.com, and My New Blog!

This new iteration of my website has been live for a few weeks now, but I just went through and cleaned up a few pages enough that I feel comfortable playing hostess here. Welcome, all! Have a cold drink and a warm appetizer. (Many thanks to the marvelous Julie Trelstad for creating the beauteous template you're now enjoying.) Here you can find information about my new book, The Magic Words; a little about me; old talks, and on this blog, new news. Such as:

  • The Magic Words is now available for preorder at any retailer of your choice! If you preorder, you can ask a question that I'll answer at length in my monthly newsletter or here. Details at the link. 
  • I'll be appearing at the Writer's Digest Conference in New York City August 11-14, talking about how to break into the YA market.
  • And I'll lead the SCBWI-Missouri Advanced Writers' Retreat in September.
  • Joanna Marple hosted a lovely interview with me at her blog, Miss Marple's Musings.
  • Kate Beaton was just named the Children's Choice illustrator of the Year for her book The Princess and the Pony!
  • And Daniel Jose Older's terrific, highly acclaimed, all-around awesome Shadowshaper is only $2.99 on pretty much every e-book platform right now. See Daniel's tweetstream here for details. 

We'll see if I return to blogging regularly -- promises on this front are usually trouble, I've found. But I am glad to have new digs.

Two New Writing Workshops with Me!

I'm delighted to announce that on Saturday, November 21, I'll be teaching two writing workshops as a fundraiser for Park Slope United Methodist Church​. One will be in the morning (9 a.m.-12 p.m.) and one in the afternoon (2-5 p.m.) at the church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Each one is $50, and all proceeds go to PSUMC. (This will be the first public debut of some material from my new book, The Magic Words, and I'm excited about that.)

"So You Want to Write a Book?" (9-12): In this workshop for beginning writers, or even people with just an idea for a book, "We’ll talk about practical techniques for starting and sustaining a novel-length narrative, including questions to ask, story dynamics to explore, and tips and tricks for getting the work done. A brief overview of revision and submission practices and publication options will be provided at the end."

To sign up: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/so-you-want-to-write-a-book-tickets-18955014960

"A Master Class in Character" (2-5): "What makes a character come alive on the page? What details should you include, or not include? Do characters have to be likeable or relateable? If you want a character to be relateable, how do you make that happen? In this workshop for novelists, we’ll explore the many dimensions and mysteries of characterization, and discuss ways to create believable, compelling fictional people."

To sign up: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-master-class-in-character-tickets-18955102221

It would be great to see you there! If you have any questions, leave 'em in the comments. Thank you for your interest.