August 2004

The Writer

The essential resource for writers

Join thousands of successful writers when you subscribe to The Writer magazine. Each month The Writer is full of features you can use to improve your writing, including before-and-after examples of improved writing, more literary markets than ever before, practical solutions for writing problems, selected literary magazine profiles, tips from famous authors and hands-on advice.

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Features
By Moira Allen
The first of a two-part article on how to successfully market your nonfiction book. This month, we offer advice on how to find and evaluate potential publishers and meet their requirements.
Edward P. Jones' untold stories
By Sarah Anne Johnson
The author of The Known World on crafting his imaginative Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and his creative process.
Writing a winner
By Jean Thompson
The results of the first New Discovery Literary Award for Short Fiction, co-sponsored by The Writer and Rosebud, and an insightful analysis of the winning entry by a noted fiction writer.
Create your own book tour
By Alix Strauss
New authors may well be on their own in organizing a book tour. Here's how to go on the road.
Hate to be interviewed? Get over it
By Lewis Burke Frumkes
Get a book published and you'd better be ready to help publicize it. Here are some pointers on improving as an interviewee.
Your blueprint for building a better screenplay
By Rick Reichman
Most Hollywood films have a common structure, as well as requirements for each major part. Here's the blueprint.
Learn to recycle your freelance 'leftovers'
By Robert Bittner
An article is apt to leave you with unused "leftovers"--sidebars, trimmed copy, interviews, etc. Put them to good use.
5 tips to sharpen dialogue
By Bharti Kirchner
Good dialogue is crucial to your fiction, revealing character, advancing a storyline and more. Learn how to do it better from our novelist.
Departments
From the editor
Take note
Mark Haddon on why kids books are so "bloody difficult," plus other literary notes, Dear Writer, and information on contests and conferences.
Breakthrough
Octogenarian finds it's never too late
By Hervie Haufler
In retirement, our writer found publishing success with his history of World War II's Ultra Secret--the crucial codebreaking project in which he himself participated.
Get started
Setting up your work space
By Sharon Miller Cindrich
Don't work where you sleep--and other tips on finding and creating a comfortable, productive place to do your writing.
Syntax
Push your writing to the edge
By Arthur Plotnik
"Writing with edge" is a popular term these days. But just what is it, and do you want it?
Poet to poet
Going formal
By Marilyn Taylor
For the right poem, meter and rhyme are some traditional stylistic tools you need in your toolbox.
Bottom line
Earn more with reprints
By Kelly James-Enger
You can make your articles do double or triple duty by effectively scouting the reprint markets. Here's how.
WriteStuff
A review of How to Be Your Own Literary Agent: An Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Richard Curtis, plus some brief looks at other writing books.
Market focus
Write and sell how-to tips
By Arthur R. Lee
Short how-to pieces aren't going to make you rich, but they can be quite cost-effective once you get the hang of them.
How I write
For The Atlantic Monthly's William Langewiesche, writing is a "tough racket" but also a privileged profession.
Writers wanted
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