Monthly Archives: August 2012

Leigh Stein’s “Dispatch from the Future”

“Have you ever been in love? Have you ever dreamed of revenge? Have you ever felt like no one knows who or where you are, and so your body may never be discovered? Have you ever wanted for a night to never end? Have you ever wanted to run away? Have you ever gone outsideContinue Reading

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The Cost of Hope

Amanda Bennett’s memoir, The Cost of Hope: The Story of A Marriage, A Family and a Quest for Life, is one of the most intelligent memoirs I’ve read in years. Bennett takes her own personal experience fighting to save her husband’s life in his struggle against a rare form of kidney cancer and as anContinue Reading

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The use of exclamation points and caps flag authors as amateurs

Flagrant misuse of grammar rules hurts a writer’s chances for publication. Agents and editors take one quick glance and form a strong first professional impression. Don’t send up red flags and get rejected by your amateur abuse of punctuation or capitalization rules. Your email query may never be opened if you put the subject lineContinue Reading

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Should The F in Facebook be capitalized?

Should the “f” in Facebook be capitalized? The icon, logo and brand identity of this popular social networking site use the lowercase letter. Brilliant marketing by breaking the style rule. But what is a copyeditor to do? Of course, I googled it. (Notice as a verb, Google is not capitalized). My research revealed lots of postsContinue Reading

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Quiet: A case for solitude and the power of contemplation

For authors it can be difficult, even shameful today, to be an introvert in a media culture where being social and outgoing are valued above all else. The reclusive literary artist who disdains self-promotion is silenced, even suppressed, in a system that rewards extraverts. Yet, when it comes to creativity and productivity among authors, weContinue Reading

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