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Nov30
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 If you feel stuck in your dayjob and writing, I've got an extreme solution for you: Peace Corps.
I'll never forget writing this story, How To Survive a Chicken Bus Crash. I was sitting out in Guatemala in the Peace Corps, lonely, binge-reading, and writing-blocked. Suddenly, while riding a bus home to my village, this wild story popped into my head--changing my writing style forever. Now, you can sign up for a creative writing MFA program that will actually send you out to Peace Corps. It was founded by two Peace Corps novelists, John Coyne and Richard Wiley, and you can find it at the Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Besides all the self-less reasons for joining Peace Corps, this could be your ticket to the freedom, inspiration, and writing time that you need. Check it out: "[It is a] four-year Peace Corps Master’s International Program that allows students to complete course-work in two years and write their theses during a two-year Peace Corps assignment. For more information, check out this link."
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Nov29
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Did your dayjob hurt your writing?I've asked lots of writers that question, most recently in this video interview with National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie and NBA finalist Joshua Ferris. Sometimes, you just need to leave that dayjob. Jeffrey Yamaguchi...
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As you can see from my scattered posting schedule this week, I have a hard time outlining my life--much less my novel.That's why I'm always looking for more advice from writers about outlining. I usually ask all my guests for...
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Nov28
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A New York Observer profile of publicist-turned 29-year-old writer Sloane Crosley has been kicking up plenty of dust on the interwebs today. Some people are jealous, some are dismissive, and others are in love--but they are all going to...
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Old time radio drama is the future. In my novel, I'm working with the hardboiled, over-dramatic, and image-driven narration style that old time radio dramas evoked. If you listen to these shows on your iPod, it's intimate as a...
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Nov27
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Okay, it's just a story, but... Earlier this year I blogged about the new literary magazine, Please Don't. The first issue is on the web, and includes "a collaborative serialized novel," written by Pete Coco, Scott Stealey, and other writers. The...
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"In March the running water of the valley is bitter, acid cold, as snow on the fells begins to melt and is brought down over chilled rocks and icy beds. It has in it all the breaking soul of winter,...
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Nov26
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Are you a fledgling writer or are you a robot? That's the question I have to ask myself every time I moderate my comments, especially those strange spam haikus that sort of make sense but link back to Viagra websites....
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Free blog sites work great for fledgling writers who want to get their work on the web. But at some point, you don't want your web address to be something outrageous like www.johndoeisagreatwriter.bloghoo.googpress.com.net. It's much simpler to buy your domain-name...
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Nov24
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What am I thankful for?I'm thankful for you reading this blog. I'm thankful for my thousandth post, my friends in my blogroll, and the amazing time that a holiday weekend gives you--letting me chill out for a couple days. I'll...
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Nov21
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I just have to ask the question, because no one else will.Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond revealed yesterday that the inspiration for his romantic springtime love song "Sweet Caroline" was really an ode to President Kennedy's daughter. A little girl! Whenever you...
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Nov20
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Welcome to the one thousandth post over here at The Publishing Spot. One thousand effing posts! It's been a long strange ride, and I'm glad to see you are still here. To celebrate, I have a video interviews with National...
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By divine orders, all lit-bloggers are now contractually obligated to have an opinion about the new Amazon e-reader, a fancy device called Kindle. You can watch the video for more information on how it works, and you can check in...
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Nov19
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Yesterday at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center, I pondered the future of web journalism with Michelle Kung from Huffington Post, Justin Fox from Time, Troy Patterson from Slate and Jeff Gordinier from Details. We sat there with some of the...
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Nobody actually visits blogs anymore. We read them on RSS Readers instead. On a panel discussion at Hudson Valley Writers' Center this weekend, a couple different people asked me about RSS feeds and blog subscriptions. Just in case you need it,...
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Nov16
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The Internets are full of kooky and frightening acts of fakery. It is only a matter of time until web trickery evolves into an actual genre of writing. Someday, your kids' literature textbooks (or ebooks or brain chips) will include...
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Nov15
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Last night I prowled the floor of the National Book Awards with a videocamera, asking the finalists to explain how they survived the rough early years. We talked about terrible jobs, stress, bad paychecks, and how to keep writing despite...
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In a world without Harry Potter, can the web bring young readers back into bookland? According to Portfolio.com's Mixed Media blog, publisher Nan Talese wants to build a better book review site--a bit of literary intelligence picked up at a cocktail...
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Nov14
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I'm typing this from the press balcony of the National Book Awards. Here's a short web video about the first literary awards ceremony blogged by the LitBlog Army. More interviews to follow, plenty of interviews with writers--from Jim Shepard to...
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Book bloggers vs. magazine book reviewers, newspaper gossip writers vs. gossip websites--we could make an endless list of the new media conflicts between print reporters and the online communities that love their beats.NYU professor Jay Rosen has a better...
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It's the eve of the National Book Awards--one of the most dramatic honors a published, well-respected writer can receive--and I'm writing about self-publishing.I think the hype around bestsellers and the hullabaloo surrounding writing awards creates the false impression that writing...
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Nov13
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Say you want to a web-based multimedia story that blends video, audio, and text content. There's no textbook for this kind of writing. There's not even an industry standard for the best way to do it. Where do you look...
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Most aspiring writers reading this site don't have any time to go back to school. Unless you have a trust fund, you can't start your career over as a graduate writing student. Until I met author and creative writing guru, Erika Dreifus,...
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Nov12
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Thousands and thousands of writers are really stressed out right now... Over at The Hufffington Post, Rachel Sklar has a brilliant roundup of all the web videos, blog posts, articles, and speeches created by striking WGA members. Follow her links and...
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After years and years of creative writing and journalism classes, I could describe my weekend two different ways. First, the writing workshop way: "I walked through the drafty concrete warehouse Salvation Army, shedding my blue wrinkled jacket that had molded...
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Nov 9
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Things will get wild and crazy next week. First up, we will be covering the National Book Awards along with The Litblog Army: Ed Champion and Marydell and Sarah Weinman and Levi Asher. Armed with a videocamera, laptop, and a notebook,...
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Are you spending too much time agonizing over every sentence of your novel? Do you have a deadline? Thousands of writers are killing themselves right now over National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), trying to write 50,000 words in a month....
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Nov 8
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How are we going to pay writers ten years from now? Nobody knows--there's no standard industry price to pay a writer for a blog post, a web video, or a podcast. As these forms multiply, it's becoming harder and harder...
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Will popular fiction outlast our literary writers? Otto Penzler (owner of the fabulous Mysterious Bookshop) thinks so, writing a review of Nostalgia Ventures republication of classic Shadow novels by Walter B. Gibson--the man who turned out a million words...
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Nov 7
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Too many writers have fantastical stories that get stuck in the genre divide: too literary for the mainstream science fiction magazines and too spacey for the literary magazines.Last year I interviewed novelist Jeff VanderMeer (who blogs at Ecstatic Days) about...
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Nov 6
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Somebody is going to write a great book about how web video, blogs, and the non-stop cable news cycle rocked the 2008 presidential election. It could be your book... If the topic interests you, head over to the Huffington Post's...
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Today I slogged through a morning rain shower to get to an unmarked polling spot in my neighborhood--all to vote for a couple uncontested judicial elections. Even though it was symbolic, I felt like I needed to do it. Last...
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Nov 5
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What if community participation in your writing became just as important, if not more important, than the actual artistic product? Over at Reel Pop, Steve Bryant gave two thumbs up to the soon-to-be-released web video show, Quarterlife. It will combine...
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Why use the same boring old textbooks over and over for writing classes? If you could build your own creative writing textbook with your favorite stories, poems, and excerpts, what would it contain?Over at Beatrice.com, short story writer Nalini Jones,...
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You want to know what the future of publishing sounds like? Like this:"Playing for Keeps is a free novel delivered via podcast in audio and PDF form. It tells the story of Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining...
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Nov 2
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One of the main reasons I started this website was to ask the questions that I never had answered during grad school.I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I think all fledgling writers need to know how...
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Sometimes we all feel like we are floating in space, and that no editor will ever pay attention to us again. Times like that, you have to buck up and re-think your pitching strategy. But don't take my word for it......
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Nov 1
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"At an all night cockfighting tournament in Huehuetenango, to which I'd gotten a ride with a man in a black SUV who'd accidentally, intentionally let hundred-dollar bills fall from his pocket when he reached for his money roll to buy...
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There's a big secret about magazine writing (or any kind of competitive writing job) that nobody will ever put in a writing textbook.It is an unavoidable part of our job, something that is at once troubling, annoying, and inspiring: in...
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