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 →