From the Mailbag: On editors

Do you have any professional editors that you would recommend? The short answer is “No.” All the professional editors I know work for publishers, and I don’t think any of them do freelance work on the side. The longer answer starts with a question: Why do you

Read more

Two Books for Writers

Ursula le Guin was and is one of my favorite writers, and when she published a book on writing some twenty years ago, I grabbed it at once. I wasn’t disappointed. Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous

Read more

Places and things, mainly

Over the last couple of decades, I’ve noticed that more and more of the newer writers are over-describing things. It looks to me as if they are attempting to create a clear and specific image in words, the way a camera does with, well, a photo. At

Read more