I met Margot Sage-El, proprietor of Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, when I was brand new to New Jersey, making my rounds in anticipation of the launch of my debut novel, The Thrall’s Tale. After an exhausting day visiting bookstores in the region, I was anxious…
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…
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…
This Sunday’s Speaker Series event, “Publishing Insiders” was a huge hit, with three articulate young professionals telling it like it really is in a rapidly changing and still completely vital industry. Alex Cameron, Assistant to the Associate Publisher at Tor Books (part of Macmillan), Anna…
Jason Allen Ashlock may not like to call himself an expert, but we at The Writers Circle refuse to consider him anything else. Who but a true digital visionary could take the shaky landscape of modern-day publishing and map such a clear, precise picture of…
“How to become a bestseller?” It’s the second question on every writer’s mind, right after “How do I get published in the first place?” No matter how many optimistic articles one reads, there’s no magic formula. According to TWC guest speaker Christina Baker Kline, when…
by Jennifer Walkup I started writing stories as a young girl, became serious about it in high school, and dug deeper into the craft in college and then graduate school. While I had a few short stories published in college and graduate school, I found…
This is a continuation of the past two posts on surviving – no, succeeding in the challenging new publishing environment. Check out Brave New World of Words – Part I and What I Learned at Author (R)evolution Day – Part II, to see how the…
This is a continuation of last week’s post on the changing publishing landscape. Check out Brave New World of Words to see where I began. The first question each of us must ask ourselves is, “Is self-publishing for me?” Eve Bridburg, founder of Boston’s Grub…
I couldn’t decide if it was my personal “coming out party” for my latest book or my moment to come to terms with reality. But with a new novel very nearly ready to share, I knew I had to get back in touch with the…
Don’t all authors dream of being interviewed on TV? Ideally, the topic should be their sweat-and-blood books, but if not that, then maybe their knowledge of the topic about which they’ve written. For historical novelists, getting to express our opinions on a legitimate documentary is…
