by Erica Balrour Tension keeps readers turning pages, whether they’re reading about the climactic battle to determine the fate of the world or the spark-filled argument when two characters finally admit they’re meant for each other. We writers are always looking for ways to deepen tension without derailing our scenes. […]
Yearly Archives: 2026
46 posts
Happy news! Gwynne Stanker just found out her gothic, atmospheric novel DARK MOUNTAIN was a First Place Winner in the 2025 Rocky Mountain Gold Rush Writers Competition, Literary/Mainstream Genre. Set in the rural Ozarks of the 1930’s, the story pits culturally diverse characters against one another, characters whose dark history […]
by Carol Berg There are certain questions people frequently ask writers. We’ve all heard them: What’s your writing day like? Plotter or pantser? Some, mostly people who don’t read speculative or paranormal fiction, ask me why I write fantasy. You talk about mysteries all the time, they might say. Why […]
Three cheers for Amy Tordoff! Her debut novel, ALL WE HAVE IS TIME, releases July 14th from Atria Books /Simon & Schuster in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook. ABOUT THE BOOK: A jaded immortal woman searching for a way to end her curse and a man traveling through time to experience […]
By Sam Knight There are so many! But let’s get some simple ones out of the way so we can move on with our writing lives! 1) Worrying about things they don’t need to know. When I first decided to write a novel, I kept trying to figure out what […]
Congratulations to Roy A. Rogers on the publication of his recent release, THE SAGA OF SARAH PENNY. Taming the Wild West as it should have happened. (Historical fiction from Spilled Ink Publications). ABOUT THE BOOK: Sarah Penny arrived by stage in Filmont from unknown parts. By coincidence, Stuttering Jake Trapper […]
by Kaitlyn Price Ah Fantasy. My favorite genre. My love for fantasy began at an early age with movies like The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and The Neverending Story. The worlds created in these movies were so unlike reality that I was instantly enamored. How did one imagine such vastly different […]
By Deborah L. Brewer Perhaps you’d like to give your mind a little workout—a sudoku for writers, if you will. Let me introduce the triolet, a delightful but somewhat tricky poetic form, in which the first line appears three times. Originating from the medieval French, the triolet’s brevity and repetition […]
by Nicole Aisling As a writer who loves dragons (and even has a series about them) I’ve been thrilled to see the resurgence in popularity. Dragons have appeared in many classic fantasy novels, from Tolkein’s The Hobbit to the hugely successful Dragonriders of Pern, which influenced how dragons are portrayed […]
By Jean Alfieri Want to Be Recognized as an Author? For some, the author’s life is a passionate side-hustle. For some, it’s our main gig. But either way, what it means to be a writer has evolved over the past decade. Gone is the life of seclusion, never entering the […]