Free Your Mind to Write. Smoke a Cigar.

When you have something to write, how do you start? Where? With an outline? Or a burst of notes? I didn’t plan it this way, but a large part of my interview with Leonard Mlodinow, bestselling author of Elastic, in the Los Angeles Review of Books doesn't talk about his book. Instead it is about …

Don’t Be a Dunce with Your Book: J.K. Toole and First Impressions

It didn't matter that my manuscript had some great stuff near the middle - - if the opening pages weren't very good, no agent or editor would ever bother to keep reading. Does that sound like you? I don't know if you're familiar or not with John Kennedy Toole, author of A Confederacy of Dunces, …

Amirite? Has the Digital Age Killed Good Writing?

It doesn't matter if you're posting something only for your friends or advertising your skills to an employer, good writing in the digital age still matters. Amirite? (My auto-correct is fighting me on that word.  It keeps telling me that what I really want to say is "emirate.") BuzzFeed's Emmy Favilla has published a new …