Does my protagonist get to be Black and have clinical depression? Be neuro-divergent and transgender? The default setting to writing diverse stories often presents as a “this or that” scenario. Or leaves an author feeling as though certain demographic boxes need to be “checked” to ensure their book is perceived as inclusive “enough.” The fallacy […]
I. In my English classroom in high school, there was a large poster in the front of the room. In thick, lurid lime-green block letters it stated: “Every moment spent reading is a moment spent learning how to write.” Even now, I still do not know who this quote is attributed to, but I know […]
As part of a deal I made with myself to improve my writing this year, I decided to commit to studying bestselling novels all year long. Why? Because Debbie Macomber once recommended this to me while we were both at a festival dinner. She seemed so certain it helps. I was grilling her relentlessly about […]
First published in The Masters Review “I don’t believe a teenager would think this.” This is a critique I’ve heard often while writing my YA novel, a story about a teenage girl who goes to live with her father in Sioux Falls one summer; when she arrives, she finds he’s left town. Rather than calling […]