I can be a little judgy sometimes… Literally. I judge things. Essay contests. Grant applications. Poetry submissions. I recently judged twenty self-published books for a national writing magazine’s contest. While I’d hoped to judge nonfiction so I could share with you what I was seeing in the indie nonfiction space, I ended up judging children’s picture […]
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Should you update your book? Maybe, maybe not.
A past client contacted me to ask if I would make a few minor changes to his book, which we’d published three years earlier. I decided that if we were updating his book anyway, I should reread the whole thing for other needed editorial adjustments. As I read, I flagged items for consideration. I was […]
Fly Me to the Moon: Reigniting Inspiration
A few months ago my husband and I watched the National Geographic series Mars. It’s an odd mash-up of sci-fi and documentary: the story of a future crew that explores and settles Mars is punctuated with present-day experts and enthusiasts discussing space exploration. At the end of the series, one person laments that we are about […]
Revision: What to Cut, What to Keep
I sat listening to John McNeil answer audience questions about Breathe Freedom, his memoir of defending himself in a stand-your-ground state and his subsequent arrest, imprisonment, and release. As he offered one fascinating (or horrifying) story after another, I asked myself, Why didn’t he include that in his book? But I knew the answer already: […]
In Praise of Deadlines: To Get Your Book Done, Raise the Stakes
For the past month, my husband and I have been preparing for the Tour D’Coop, an annual tour of backyard chicken coops in Raleigh that’s a fundraiser for a local nonprofit. We’ve taken the tour in the past but had always hesitated to offer up our coop. “We don’t have anything special to show people.” […]