Seek the Unknown in the Familiar: Lessons From Historical Fiction
The best historical fiction “vibrates with a past that is in the present” and reveals the unseen in stories thought we knew—craft skills any writer can bring to their work.
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Embrace the “And Then”: Lessons From Fairy Tales
Fairy tales are built on their own enchanting associative logic. A maestro of magical realism explores what writers can unlock when they let readers leap between a story’s plot points—and where such a trail of breadcrumbs can lead.
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Conjure the Strange: Lessons From Horror
The award-winning writer studies how the most powerful horror stories are grounded in “deeply human dilemma,” and how daring the ghoulish can bring us closer to our characters.
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Real Life as Experiment: Letting Characters Play in Your Life
The author of Restitution (Regal House Publishing, September 2025) recommends writers use their own memories as a testing ground for their characters.
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Conveying Music and Dance in Fiction: Forgetting the Outline
The author of Duet for One (Regal House Publishing, May 2025) recommends writers discover their structure as they write.
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Desire, Physicality, Contradiction
The author of Freedom Is a Feast explores tactics for creating compelling, human, three-dimensional characters.
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Food and Fiction
The author of Freedom Is a Feast considers cuisine and its place in fictional narratives.
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The Power of Nerding Out
The author of Anyone’s Ghost contemplates the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and how it has influenced his writing life.
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Ten Questions for Maureen Sun
“My ambition isn’t to write something that lets you shut out the world.” —Maureen Sun, author of The Sisters K
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On Person and Place
The author of I’ll Give You a Reason explores how setting shapes characters.
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