August 2013

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.

Alicia Anstead

August. It's a month like no other.

By Alicia Anstead

August. It’s a month like no other. And it has particular resonance for writers because of its heightened luminosity and vivid testimony to nature’s cycles. August intensifies our senses. The gloaming is never as dazzling. The sky never as crisp.

Features

Strout’s there

By Jack Smith

Elizabeth Strout’s fourth novel is set in her home state of Maine, where her narrative voice took shape.

Separation anxiety

By Julie Krug

Tough times can get in the way of work. But don’t stray too far, says Natalie Goldberg.

Internet brain

By Hillary Casavant

Can reading and writing on the Internet improve your work?

Range bedfellows

By Mimi Schwartz and Sondra Perl

Creative nonfiction combines the best of two worlds. Ten tips can improve the relationship.

Where reporters dare to tread

By Andrew Schneider

When technology fails in the war theater, a reporter goes analog to get his story.

Raising hell

By Kinney Littlefield

Screenwriter Vince Gilligan has created some of TV’s most scintillating monsters. When Breaking Bad ends, will he kill his darlings?

Departments

Poet to Poet

Spill it

By Luke Bloomfield

A poet traces the arc of his identity.

Writing Essentials

High-five structure

By Minal Hajratwala

Steps to build narrative tension.

Market Focus

Not-so-secret identities

By Lisa Wade McCormick

Social media seals a book deal.

Conference Insider

Set sail

By Hillary Casavant

Where the muse meets the writer: the Cape Cod Writers Conference is idyllic and intense.

Literary Spotlight

Lucky Peach

By Melissa Hart

Looking for the sufficiently awesome in food, writing and culinary culture

Also in Every Issue

Take Note

Fast writing, Susan Choi, products for writers on the move, a guide to freewriting, advice from lefties, the writing prompt and more.

Write Stuff

Don McNair sheds light on the editing process.

Markets

Classified Advertising

How I Write

Cathie Pelletier: “Know what publishers are publishing.”