To author Kelly McWilliams, writing is about asserting valuable truths. With her 2020 novel, AGNES AT THE END OF THE WORLD, she “felt [she] needed to send a message into this world: a message about feminism and patriarchy and how we can survive oppression.” That sense of survival and hope is key to both of…
by Mari Hotchkiss An unusual career path. As a young child in Ecuador, Zoraida Córdova grew up listening to her grandmother’s stories that were filled with magic and wonder. At six years old, she immigrated to the United States with her mom and grandma, causing her to abandon her love of stories. “I stopped reading.…
Happy Fall! Have you got your sweater? Your scarf? Your pumpkin-spiced whatever?Then sit down and talk with us about character. Hemingway said, “When writing a novel, a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.” But how do we do that? That’s the challenge, isn’t it? We loved our classes…
Experts Weigh In: 10 Crucial Screenwriting Mistakes Lee Jessup, a member of our screenwriting faculty at the upcoming Willamette Writer’s Conference and the author of Breaking In: Tales from the Screenwriting Trenches and Getting It Write: An Insider’s Guide To A Screenwriting Career shares how to avoid ten screenwriting mistakes. You can find this post and others…
Written by SONIA SIMONE Reprinted with permission from Copyblogger. If you’re a writer, you might have heard this most of your life: People don’t make a living writing. You should find something practical to do with your life. Smart, capable writers grimly pass around war stories on Facebook. Penny-a-word assignments, clients who don’t pay, disdain for our…
Eric Witchey is presenting two talks at Willamette Writers in November, so we invited him to share some thoughts about writing with us. Check out Eric’s thoughts about genre, markets, literary fiction, and more.
What’s the Difference between One Genre and Another? The editor.
Lame joke? Not really.
Last week our four finalists consulted with screenwriting mentor and 2016 FiLMLaB Director, Randall Jahnson, before diving into an optional script rewrite; a chance to improve their original seven page script with notes from our Celebrity Judges. By Thursday night, all of the revised scripts were in and ready to review by our Producers Circle,…
“Nobody knows anything…” William Goldman’s famous quote about Hollywood, may very well apply to the publishing industry as well; especially during this time of digital expansion and the resulting democratization of creative expression. The tools of production and marketing are available to everyone now, not just studios and publishing houses. What the long term net…
The Book Nest presents Lunch with an Author most weeks on Thursday or Friday Mark your calendar for these lunches and go here for more information about upcoming author lunches. RSVP (not required but helpful) at AmandaBird@airpost.net. Join us for lunch at noon with these local authors: , Feb. 19: Johnny Sundstrom, author of Dawn’s Early Light…
