When people ask me my favorite book of all time, I struggle with naming just one. I provide a list, and Slaughterhouse-Five is always on that list. This past weekend, I organized my book shelf, as I tend to do when I have a stretch of free time and am trying to avoid Swiffering my — Read More
Author: Kim Hooper
ePublishing Success Story: Stephanie Walker
I met Stephanie Walker before she became Stephanie Walker. She was Stephanie Weinert, engaged to Bob Walker. We were both in the USC Master’s of Professional Writing program, struggling to keep up with deadlines, churning out plays, short stories, novel ideas. She was also planning a wedding. Over a year or two, I became good — Read More
For those uninspired days…
I see this as a more violent take on the phrase, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
Confessions of an unpublished novelist
Sometimes I think it would be liberating if all my old manuscript pages went up in flames. When I say, “I’m researching,” it’s just code for, “I’m not writing.” I go months “researching.” There are moments when my characters totally perplex me. Those moments are terrifying. If I want to bail on a social event, — Read More
Why do we write?
I’ve asked myself this question often, sometimes with a tone of calm curiosity, sometimes with absolute frustration. What I come back to time and time again is this: I just enjoy writing. When I was a kid, this basic fact was complicated by another fact: I was good at writing. With that came well-meaning people — Read More
Quote of the month
When I was young (like, elementary school), I spent an almost-outrageous amount of time on character development when I wrote stories. I drew pictures of what I thought the character looked like, ripped images out of magazines that reminded me of her, made lists of her favorites (food, color, TV show, band). I sketched her — Read More
What you need to know (but nobody tells you when you’re starting out)
Ira Glass, as you probably know, is the host and producer of This American Life, a weekly public radio show broadcast on more than 500 stations to about 1.7 million listeners. Ira Glass is a master storyteller, plain and simple, and he has this to say to beginning storytellers: Check out the 4-part series with — Read More
Murder your books
This is the new thing in Japan — you pay a few bucks per title to have your book collection scanned and emailed to you before it is…cremated, essentially. My question: What does Ray Bradbury think of this? The Japanese are all about conserving space. Lots of people, little island. Makes sense. When the Kindle — Read More
ePublishing: Does it really “count”?
I used to think digital publishing was sort of a cheat, a way to get around the obstacles of traditional publishing for those who get sick of the multiplying rejection letters. It wasn’t “real” publishing, in my mind. After all, my dream was to see my book, with some big publishing house’s insignia on the — Read More
The writing cave
I’ve been a fan of Molly Wizenburg for a few years, thanks to a dear friend who turned me onto her blog, Orangette. When her book, A Homemade Life, was announced, I pre-ordered it. And I wasn’t disappointed when it finally arrived on my doorstep. Her book, like her blog, is about food, but not — Read More