by Allison “A.J.” Colucci One of the biggest hurdles aspiring authors face is landing the right agent. Three of New York’s top literary agents shared their best advice to a packed crowd at The Writers Circle’s Speaker Series on Sunday, March 8. Marietta B. Zacker…

Every writer has them. The words that crop up, over and over again in their manuscripts, the ones where, when they reach for a phrase, this is what appears. I’ve been thinking about default words lately, because I’m doing a pass through my latest novel,…

On Friday, I finished my revisions. Again. At last. (It had better be!) No, I don’t share this fact for cheers, though I appreciate them, truly. I share it because so many of you – in my own Writers Circle classes or those of our…

by Heidi Sussman, TWC Adult Student After hearing about it for a while, I decided that 2014 was the year to take the NaNoWriMo challenge. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) happens every November when people commit to writing 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. To…

Last year, we wrote a popular blog post on gifts for writers (and readers). Our own holiday gifts to one another were literary in theme – a Mad Hatter tea pot for Michelle, Romeo and Juliet  fingerless gloves for Judith. Anything that helps inspiration flow,…

Well, folks, it’s almost Thanksgiving, quite possibly my favorite holiday. First and foremost I’m always grateful to my family for being the continual force for good that they are, and this year, I must especially thank my brother and sister-in-law for offering up their home…

Just how does an aspiring novelist find his way to becoming the head of a brand-new, paradigm-shifting division of a major publishing house?  For Brendan Deneen, it’s a circuitous route that lead to becoming the head of Macmillan Entertainment, the book-to-film division of Macmillan Publishing.  His untraditional approach to getting things…

by Jeff Campbell, TWC Instructor One good hook? That’s hard enough to come up with. Fifty good hooks, one after another, for 300 pages? That’s the daunting challenge I faced when writing my forthcoming book Daisy to the Rescue (Zest Books). It’s a collection of…

Thanks to Christina Kapp, who facilitates TWC’s Poets Circle and teaches our Wednesday Young Storymakers class, for sharing her retreat journal with us! Friday It was definitely not a good time to disappear for the weekend. School had just started for my kids and I…

by Paul Witcover, TWC Sci-Fi/Fantasy Instructor Are you a speculative fiction writer? Speculative fiction is distinguished by a sense of wonder. Entire books of critical theory have been written about the term “sense of wonder,” but what it means in practice is a willingness to…

Inspired by TWC’s upcoming writing retreat, Michelle offers a whimsical fairy tale… Once upon a time, there was a timid young woman with a yen for writing and a monster desk-drawer dragon that fed on her work and kept her voice hidden from the world……

by Alex, age 14, Summer Intensive Writer This essay was written following the Summer Creative Writing Intensive’s visit to the Deserted Village in Watchung Reservation on July 23. Through the bus window I can smell the unmistakable, impenetrable scent of soil. As we climb out,…