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IMAGINE
WRITE
PUBLISH
October 2016 Volume 129 Number 10

FEATURES
14 26
What agents Curious and
want curiouser
Six literary agents weigh in on Do you have what it takes to
platform, publishing, and why become a modern science
you should never address a writer?
query to dear sir. BY REBECCA A. HILL
BY MELISSA HART

18 28
Submission Road to a
sins memoir
Getting out of the slush pile Two-time memoirist Elena
starts with avoiding these dead- Gorokhova shares how she il-
ly agent submission mistakes. luminates the past on the page.
BY SAM HARRISON BY PAT OLSEN

20 30
Portrait of Bust that
a modern block!
Five professional writers share
novelist their best tips for getting unstuck.
Best-selling author Caroline BY RYAN G. VAN CLEAVE
Leavitt has had both towering
highs and staggering lows in her
long career. Heres what shes
learned after 11 novels and sev-
eral decades in the industry.
BY NICKI PORTER
 DEPARTMENTS IN EVERY ISSUE
10 OFF THE CUFF 4 From the Editor
Down in history
One writers love of the past 5 Take Note
led to an unforeseen future. Beverly Jenkins, Roxana
BY ERIKA JANIK
Robinson, Roy Peter Clark,
and more.
12 WRITER AT WORK 42 Markets
Story study
How to conduct, manage,
47 Classified advertising
and cull research in iction.
BY JACK SMITH
48 How I Write
Amulya Malladi: I am a character-
14 34 FREELANCE SUCCESS driven writer, and I believe that
once you deine a character, they
Writers wanted
tell their story.
The Internet is full of
classiieds calling for writers.
How many are too good to
be true?
BY PETE CROATTO

36 CLASS ACTION
Another world
This six-week sci-i and
fantasy workshop doesnt
just teach craft. It provides a
community that lasts long
after the workshop is over.
BY JEFF TAMARKIN

26
38 CONFERENCE INSIDER
Thrill seeker
From FBI ield trips to an all-
day PitchFest, ThrillerFest
welcomes page-turners of
all genres.
BY MELISSA HART
ON THE WEB:
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writermag.com The Writer | 3

FROM THE EDITOR
W
e went to press on this issue at the end of July, seem-
ingly one of the most violent months in recent memory.
We woke each morning to a new tragedy. Some of us
turned toward each other, some turned against, and still
others turned away from everything, bunkering down, riding out the
turmoil as the world smoldered.
It was in these humid, breathless days of July that I turned up, bedrag-
gled and weary, at ThrillerFest 2016 (profiled in our pages on page 38), a
conference for thriller writers and not, I am always quick to clarify, a
convention for Michael Jackson enthusiasts. There I met debut authors,
struggling authors, successful authors, and best-selling mega-authors. I
listened to each one talk about the industry, the struggle to get published,
the brave new world of marketing and social media that modern authors
are expected to master. But my favorite moment of the conference hap-
pened when the wickedly funny Karin Slaughter took to the stage to
interview Gillian Flynn. The two rolled up their sleeves and attacked the
many frustrations of being a woman writer in a traditionally male-domi-
nated genre, but the thing that stuck with me was the still-present stigma
they faced as a genre writer as opposed to a highbrow literary writer.
Many of the writers I talked to echoed the same sentiments. Why cant
a murder mystery also be artful? Who says a hair-raising ghost story cant
also be lyrical? These authors had slaved over their characters, built lay-
ers into the plots, and chosen timely and essential themes for their works.
Why do they still get eyerolls when they meet literary authors?
Some of the most interesting commentary on social politics and
poverty and race is being done in genre right now, Flynn told us, and
frankly, I agreed with her. The walls of genre are widening, and there is
nothing, no law, no decree that says a good genre story cant also be an
art form just look at what the editors at Pulp Literature (profiled on
page 40) are publishing.
Reading not TV, not movies, not video games or Twitter is the
one thing that instills empathy in its consumer. It also provides a dis-
traction, an escape from the world around us. There have been times
in all of our lives when weve needed to pass an awful day just to get to
a tomorrow. Some days, Ive found, reading is the only thing that
makes that tomorrow show up a little quicker.
Do not begrudge any reader their lifeline, be it horror, mystery, fan-
tasy, or romance. Instead of bemoaning what modern audiences are
reading, celebrate that theyre reading, period. Writers of every caliber
exist in any genre. Lets lay down the labels and celebrate who we are: a
group of humans insane enough to spend each day battling rejection,
writers block, unwieldy sentences, and dwindling readerships, each of
us grappling with the page long into the night.
In short, writers, lets all quit with the snobbery. We have a hard
enough road as it is.
Lets weather it together.
Keep writing,
Nicki Porter
Senior Editor
4 | The Writer October 2016
IMAGINE
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COMPILED BY NICKI PORTER
MINING THE GEMS
Research in historical fiction requires a
steady hand and a critical eye.
By Beverly Jenkins
W
e writers are clever. We take the 26 letters of the
alphabet and spin them into fascinating tales
that run the gamut from science fiction to
romance and everything in between. If we do it well, we
grab readers with such force they go without sleep, are late
to work, and miss subway stops to keep turning those pages.
When placing history into your fiction, that cleverness is
taken to another level because you want to do it seamlessly.
Research can send me down the rabbit hole, and, like Alice,
I might not come up for air for hours as I wander and pon-
der and fill my basket with the historical jewels I want to
use. However, too much bling can blind a reader or make
their eyes glaze over. And to quote the late, great Elmore
Leonard, we writers want to leave out the parts readers skip.
So what to do? Granted, sometimes an information
dump is necessary, and if its penned in an interesting way,
readers may forgive one, two, or even three instances as
long as theyre spread out over the body of the work. For
me, though, the first rule of thumb is brevity. Case in
point: In my second published novel, Vivid, theres a big
lacrosse game essential to the plot. The history and legends
behind Little Brother of War, as its traditionally called by
Native Americans, is fascinating, so much so that by the
time I finished shoehorning everything I wanted to include
into the narrative, I had a page and a half of details. No one
wants to read all that, even if it did include wars and cute
More nice pics here/Shutterstock
little animals like flying squirrels. Rather than include pas-
sages I knew would be skipped, I did a ruthless edit and
ended up with three tight sentences that conveyed all that
was necessary. Some of the leftovers were sprinkled into
sections leading up to the big match, and others were saved
for another book.
"The secret of historical composition is
to know what to neglect." Lord Bryce
Not everything can be fixed with a simple edit, so another
way I try to seamlessly marry fiction and history is to have my
characters wear the history via their ancestral memories, dia-
logue, backstory, and occupation.
Deputy Marshal Dixon Wildhorse, the hero in my
1880s western, Topaz, is of Black Seminole descent.
Through his backstory and memories of his parents and
grandparents, readers learn about the Seminole Wars, the
removal to Indian Territory, and the great Seminole
Chiefs Wild Cat and John Horse. Wildhorses occupation
comes into play, too, because as a lawman, he interacts
with the territorys outlaws: the Light Horse police of the
Five Civilized Tribes, Hanging Judge Isaac Parker, Parkers
African-American bailiff, George Winston, and much
more. All the history is relayed briefly yet effectively
enough to give Topaz the edutainment wow factor I
strive for when writing. Throw in a crusading female
journalist who wears the history of the 19th century
African-American newspapers and add a plot thread
based on the Greek play Lysistrata, and you have a some-
times-laugh-out-loud story filled with research jewels
thats been continuously in print since 1997. Not bad for a
paperback that has kissing in it, too.
So, there you have it a brief look at my process. Take
what you need and pass on what you dont. Remember,
there are many clever ways to weave history into your fic-
tion just leave out the parts readers skip.
Beverly Jenkins is the nations premier writer of African-American his-
torical romance fiction and specializes in 19th century African-American
life. Shes a USA Today best-selling author, an NAACP Image Award nomi-
nee, and has more than 30 published novels to date.
writermag.com The Writer | 5
 Send us great sentences from literature. Lets figure out what makes them great.
A letter from Roy Peter Clark
reat sentences come in many forms: short and
long, feather-light or weighty, encrusted with
punctuation or flowing without friction from
capital letter to full stop. I am on the lookout
for great sentences, and I need your help find-
ing them. If you send them to me via The
Writer magazine, I promise I will read them and more.
Writers dont just read great sentences, we X-ray read
them. We not only read for meaning, but we look beneath
the surface of a text to discover how the meaning is made.
In an act of reverse-engineering, we figure out which of
the writers moves made something clear, suspenseful, poi-
gnant, or ironic.
This is the stuff of my latest book, The Art of X-ray Read-
ing: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will
Improve Your Writing, published by Little, Brown. In it, I
wonder whether the best English sentence of all time is the
one Geoffrey Chaucer used in 1380 to ignite The Canter-
bury Tales. I have committed that sentence 18 poetic lines
in Middle English to memory and recite it for inspiration.
I love its sound and structure, its movement, its manipula-
tion of time, how it sets the stage for what follows.
6 | The Writer October 2016
My book was propelled in part by a feature in American
Scholar magazine. Based on recommendations of its editors,
the magazine offered readers Ten Best Sentences, drawn
mostly from the canonical literature of the last century. My
reaction when I read them? These really are great sen-
tences, but then something more important: I wonder
what makes them great.
I spent a long afternoon thinking about that question,
reading and re-reading those best sentences, wearing my
metaphorical X-ray reading glasses. With the permission of
American Scholar, I published an essay with my close read-
ing of each great example.
I want to do this again with my friends at The Writer
magazine. We are looking for 10 maybe 20 great prose
domagoj/Shutterstock; Epsicons/Shutterstock
sentences (no poetry this go-round) drawn from published
works of fiction or non-fiction in English, not translation.
Our bias will be for well-known authors, but we are willing
to be delighted and surprised. I am setting an arbitrary
limit of 200 words, but two words (Jesus wept) might
work just as well.
If we publish and X-ray your sentence, we will enter your
name in a drawing to receive copies of The Art of X-ray
 "Literature is like any other trade, you will never sell anything
unless you go to the right shop." George Bernard Shaw
Reading as well as the 10th-anniversary line, that main clause comes near the
edition of Writing Tools: 55 Essential left end, with all the subordinate ele-
Strategies for Every Writer. ments branching to the right.
But lets account for that opening
Example of X-ray reading in action phrase: For millennia beyond compu-
As you think about this happy task, tation. . . It contains two of the longest
here is an example for inspiration. I words both of four syllables. An edi-
found it this morning in a tattered tor might suggest For countless mil-
paperback book I have saved from lennia, but I would argue that beyond
high school: The Sea Around Us (1951) computation brings science and math
by Rachel L. Carson, one of the best into the equation, a period of time so
science writers of the 20th century. I long that it defies the attempts of
stumbled upon this sentence: experts to count it. Something about
For millennia beyond computa- that introductory phrase fills what fol-
tion, the seas waves have battered the lows with mystery and grandeur.
coastlines of the world with erosive After the main clause, the author
effect, here cutting back a cliff, there gives us these two parallel participial
stripping away tons of sand from a phrases: here cutting back. . .there
beach, and yet again, in a reversal of stripping away. This is over-interpre-
their destructiveness, building up a bar tation, but the several commas give
or a small island. the sentence a wave-like quality that
For the record, that sentence uses 48 mirrors the meaning. What a nice
words. All but four contain just one or surprise near the end, when the
two syllables. It strikes me how free the destructive effects of erosion are
sentence is of scientific language. The reversed, if not balanced, by a third
closest we get is erosive effect, which participial phrase, this one with a
feels clear enough from context. positive denotation: building up a
The writers goal is to make us see bar or small island.
in both senses of the word: to visualize I have just committed more than
and to understand. 200 words to the X-ray reading of a
A powerful tool of clarity is placing 48-word sentence. I hope I will be able
a subject/verb/object sequence near to apply that kind of scrutiny to the
the beginning of the sentence; waves/ great sentences that you submit for my
battered/coastlines does the trick. If inspection. Until then, happy reading.
you think of this sentence as a straight Roy Peter Clark
Send your entry to tweditorial@madavor.com
with the subject line X-ray Reading.
Entries are due by Sept. 28, 2016.
PLEASE INCLUDE IN YOUR ENTRY:
great sentence
name of the book or work it came from
name of the author
contact information for you
C A R E E R
C H O P S
The top 10 dos and donts of
submitting to literary agents
1. DONT submit until your book is the best
it can be.
2. DO research the agent thoroughly. Read
their publishers marketplace or agency
website bio. Know what they rep, what
theyre looking for, and their specific
submission guidelines.
3. DO write a professional and clear blurb
of no more than one to two paragraphs
maximum that sticks to the main charac-
ter and main conflict. Dont get bogged
down in secondary characters, backstory,
setting, or theme, and dont give away
the ending (thats for the synopsis).
4. DO write a clear and concise query letter
with not a comma out of place. Address
the letter to the agent and tell them why
you are submitting to him or her specifi-
cally. State the title, word count, and
genre of your work.
5. DO exude confidence, but dont overdo it.
6. DONT tell the agent you climbed Mr.
Kilimanjaro or have 15K twitter followers
UNLESS that experience makes you the
best person to write this story.
7. DONT include Lucinda cursive fonts,
GIFs, or a mock-up of your cover. Keep it
simple, courteous, and professional.
8. DO list legitimate publishing credentials,
including awards and anthologies youve
been printed in.
9. DONT tell the agent your book is a
guaranteed best-seller, destined
to rock the publishing industry to its
foundations, or will make a blockbuster
movie starring Kristen Stewart. In fact,
dont make any sort of value judgment on
yourself as a writer or the work you are
submitting. That is the agents decision
to make. Just stick to the facts.
10. DO know your genre and be specific.
Dont call your book a crossover (a cross-
over develops naturally; you cant write
one) and dont say it will appeal to all
ages. And remember: Genre is the
reader the book appeals to, not what the
book is.
Dionne McCulloch, U.S. managing
editor, Cornerstones Literary Consul-
tancy, cornerstonesUS.com
WRITERS ON WRITING

Roxana Robinson
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOUVE
LEARNED ABOUT WRITING?
The need for empathy. Empathy enlarges the writers
understanding, engages the reader, and widens the story.
The engine of narrative is conflict. Often Ill use
argument to reveal that conflict, and in writing the
argument Ill take the part of each character. I may start by
agreeing with one, but as I write the scene, I move
between the two and begin to sympathize with them both.
Each gives me a different way of looking at the issue:

I dont know why it still surprises me that youre

always late, he says.
I dont know why it still surprises me that you always
blame me, she says, instead of asking what
happened.
What happened, then. He shakes his head.
I hit something, she says.

Conflict changes things. The characters may move

further apart, or they may move together. Either way, the
narrative should movedeeper, to places of pain and
vulnerability [that] arouse empathy in the writer me
and the reader you.
Here, her husband, or boyfriend, or whoever he is, may
move away from her.
You hit what? he asks. Thirty-five?
If he moves away from her, we may feel less empathy
for him, which may deepen our empathy for her. Or he
may move toward her.
Charles, she says.
Her voice changes when she says that, and he glances
up. Her face is lowered but shes looking up at him. In
the plate glass window behind her he sees her
reflection, the shadow of her long hair. Beyond the
window are the blurred rainy woods and the night. He
thinks of the sound it makes, when you hit something.
Empathy animates connection and creates
engagement. Empathy is the true engine of writing;
without it, conflict is empty: It doesnt matter to the reader
if two people fight and you dont care about them. Its
empathy that draws you, the reader, and me, the writer,
into their hearts.
Roxana Robinson is a novelist and biographer best known for her 2008
novelCost,which was named one of the Five Best Novels of the Year by
theWashington Post.She has authored four other novels, the most recent of
which,Sparta,won the James Webb Award for Distinguished Fiction and
was shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award. She has also published three
collections of short stories and the biographyGeorgia OKeeffe: A Life.Rob-
insons work has been published inThe New Yorker, The Atlanticand
theNew York Times,among others, and shehas received fellowships from
the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She
currently teaches literary traditions at the Hunter College MFA Program and
also serves as the president of The Authors Guild.
HOW HAS THIS HELPED YOU AS A WRITER?
In every way. Empathy is the great expander. Anton
Chekhov, my hero, is a great example of a writer whose
use of empathy is pervasive and fundamental. He sets
down the world exactly as it is, without judging. Thats
the important thing hes not critical. He writes without
sentimentality or disapproval. His characters are
complex and vulnerable, and because they are so real
because he understands them we can enter into them,
into their minds and beating hearts. Thats what I want to
do, as a writer I want to enter into those minds and
hearts, and I want you, the reader, to enter in as well.
Empathy is the portal.
Gabriel Packard is the author of the novelThe Painted Ocean, which is being
published by Hachette in October.

8 | The Writer October 2016

 Writing Creative Nonfiction
Taught by Professor Tilar J. Mazzeo
COLBY COLLEGE
LECTURE TITLES

D TIME OF
1. Welcome to Creative Nonction
E
IT 2. Finding the Story

FE
LIM

R
3. Honoring the Nonction Contract

70% 4.
5.
Writing Great Beginnings
Show, Dont Tell

31
off
OR
6. Launching a Narrative Arc

ER
ER
D BY O C T OB 7. Clifhangers and Page Turners
8. Building Dramatic Sentences
9. Rhetorical Devices and Emotional Impact
10. Putting It All Together
11. Revealing Character in Words and Actions
12. Creating Compelling Characters
13. Character Psychology
14. Getting Inside the Heads of Your Characters
15. Using Narrative Perspective
16. Shaping Your Voice
17. Writing the GutterHow to Not Tell a Story
18. Dialogue Strategies in Creative Nonction
19. Researching Creative Nonction
20. How to Not Have People Hate You
21. Revising Your Work
22. Building Your Audience
23. Getting Published
24. Being a Writer

Writing Creative Nonction

Learn to Write Creative Course no. 2154 | 24 lectures (30 minutes/lecture)

Nonfiction like a Pro

Memoirs. Blogs. Biographies. Creative nonfiction is more popular than
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Writing Creative Nonfiction is your chance to tap into your inner writer
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the entire writing process, from brainstorming for the perfect idea to
getting your final product noticed by literary agents and publishers. These
24 inspirational lectures are packed with exercises, tricks of the trade, and
practical advice youll continue to draw on every time you sit down to write.
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OFF THE CUFF
BY ERIKA JANIK
Down in history
One writers love of the past led to an unforeseen future.
I
n 1878, 32-year-old Anna Katharine Green arrived at
the door of publisher G. P. Putnams Sons in New York
City clutching the manuscript shed worked on for six
years. It was a detective story called The Leavenworth
Case: A Lawyers Story. Green had filled the backs of enve-
lopes, stationery, notebooks, and torn-out ledger pages with
her draft, writing in secret to avoid the disapproval of her
father, who had little regard for fiction. He certainly
wouldnt approve of a detective story. Graceful and quiet,
Green was an unlikely crime writer. One of few women of
her generation to earn a college degree, she considered her-
self a writer of verse, not whodunits, but she struggled to
find a publisher for her poetry. Green hoped that this story
would launch her career and bring notice to her poetry.
More than a century later, Greens years of experiment-
ing and floundering rang true for me. Like Green, I came
to writing popular history and even writing itself out of
a seeming dead end. Id hoped to become a history profes-
sor, but graduate school had left me floundering and iso-
lated. I still loved history and uncovering stories, but I
didnt love the hours, even days, of not speaking to anyone
but a barista or grocery store clerk. The verbal elbows
thrust over theory in weekly seminars did little to bolster
my confidence in my choice.
10 | The Writer October 2016
Instead, it was my part-time job at the Wisconsin Histor-
ical Society, digitizing manuscripts, letters, and photos, and
writing contextual essays what some of my professors
called public history with a shudder both visible and audi-
ble that seemed to suggest a new path.
Id loved history for as long as I could remember. I
unwrapped dozens of history books at Christmas and urged
my parents to stop at every historic marker and brown high-
way sign we passed on vacations. The roadside ball of twine
interested me both for its size but also the type of person
who might spend years on such a quixotic dream. It was
through reading popular history and visiting historic sites
that I also discovered the people often missing from my
textbooks: women.
When I left graduate school, I felt unmoored and desper-
ate to find my way. But history didnt seem to have the
answers anymore. My work at the historical society taught
me that I liked writing things that people actually read
(unlike my history papers) and that they found useful, so I
pursued journalism. Only then, after a few years of pitching
stories and struggling with the why me, why now part of
jgolby/Shutterstock
the pitch, did I realize that my historical bent and creden-
tials werent an albatross but an asset. That the story part of
history that Id loved since I was a kid, the quirky details
that make a person from the past seem
like more than a two-dimensional cut-
out, was something I could do, too. It
was more than just finding my voice,
but finding the courage to believe that
my perspective, my curiosity, mattered.
Green also had a storehouse of per-
sonal experience and knowledge to
draw on for her work, even if she didnt
realize it at first. As a lawyers daughter,
Green had grown up surrounded by
talk of law, courts, and police. She
developed a keen understanding of the
legal system that she wove into her
tales. The accuracy of her legal proceed-
ing descriptions drew the critical scru-
tiny of a state legislator in Pennsylvania,
who argued that the book could not
possibly have been written by a woman.
Green also created something rarely
seen in mystery stories in her lifetime:
women detectives. Like me, did Green
look around and wonder where all the
ladies were in literature? Green created
fictional detecting women who, along
with those of her contemporaries, set
the stage for Jane Marple, Nancy Drew,
Jane Tennison, and Kay Scarpetta.
As a novice author, Green was
totally unknown, and yet The Leaven-
worth Case became a national sensa-
tion, selling a million copies over a
decade, far more than any detective
novel to date. It catapulted her to fame.
So great was her success that she didnt
give her poetry a second thought. She
wrote dozens more novels and short
stories, nearly all mysteries, earning
fan mail from Sherlock Holmes creator
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the title,
by the late 19th century, of the mother
of detective fiction.
Its unlikely Ill reach Greens level of
success and fame. But theres satisfac-
tion in finding that my knowledge,
often accumulated without specific
intention, has found an outlet in a way
that speaks to my own past, skills, and
passions. And in remembering Anna
Katharine Green, Im calling attention
to the long line of women writers who
have written and shaped the mystery
genre for generations.
Theres comfort in knowing that the
path we didnt plan or didnt see at all
often ends up being the right one,
sometimes in spite of ourselves.
Erika Janik is a writer, historian, and the exec-
utive producer of Wisconsin Life on Wiscon-
sin Public Radio. Shes the author of six books,
including her most recent, Pistols and Petticoats:
175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction.

The Oldest Low-Residency

MFA IN FLORIDA
Fiction | Nonfiction | Poetry

Past and Present Guest Writers and Editors Include:

Richard Bausch, Michael Connelly, Lydia Davis, Arthur Flowers, Nick Flynn, Roxane Gay,
Hal Hartley, Amy Hill Hearth, Eli Horowitz, Leslie Jamison, Denis Johnson, Miranda July,
Ben Lerner, Jamaal May, Susan Minot, Rick Moody, Francine Prose, George Saunders,
Heather Sellers, Patricia Smith, Wesley Stace, Deborah Treisman, Lidia Yuknavitch

Teaching Faculty Include:

Jessica Anthony, Sandra Beasley, John Capouya, Brock Clarke, Erica Dawson (director),
Mikhail Iossel, Stefan Kiesbye, Kevin Moffett, Donald Morrill, Josip Novakovich,
Jason Ockert, Alan Michael Parker, Jeff Parker, Corinna Vallianatos, Jennifer Vanderbes

Learn more at www.ut.edu/mfacw

or by calling (813) 258-7409.

writermag.com The Writer | 11

WRITER AT WORK
BY JACK SMITH
Story study
How to conduct, manage, and cull research in fiction.
W
hen you think of research for fiction, youre
probably inclined to think of historical nov-
els. After all, if youre writing contemporary
fiction, you live in that world, so how much
is there to research? Perhaps not very much if you base your
fiction on your own experiences. But if you take on other
identities characters quite different from yourself you
may need to do some research perhaps a lot.
Research needs
Lets say you situate a character in a part of the country
youre not familiar with. Can you provide a good estab-
lishing shot the way filmmakers do? What are some geo-
graphical markers you should capture and describe well?
Can you give a believable sense for the culture of this
place? This may take some research into print media,
especially visual media, but better yet, if you have the
opportunity to visit, do so. Nothing beats firsthand expe-
rience, which allows you to absorb both sights and
sounds. Research enough to effectively put the aura of a
place on the page.
Setting isnt the only thing you might need to research.
Any number of things come into play when youre writing
fiction. How do you perform certain tasks at a given job?
What are the job responsibilities of that particular position?
Whats an ordinary day like? To achieve verisimilitude, you
need to get these things right. With fiction, you have some
latitude, but you still dont want to be so off that you jerk
your reader out of the story. If your protagonist is on the
wrong side of the law, say, a burglar perhaps a safe cracker
find out how to crack a safe. At the other end of the spec-
trum, if your protagonist is a law-abiding citizen lets
assume shes an electrical engineer be sure to find out
what an electrical engineer does. How might an electrical
12 | The Writer October 2016
engineer think? If your protagonist is strongly tuned into
the sights, sounds, and rhythms of nature, which animals
and their behaviors will your character notice? Can you
name and describe numerous varieties of flowers and their
seasonal appearances?
Research may help you achieve verisimilitude, but in
some cases, it does more than that: its crucial to the story
and its basic themes. In that case, your research serves a key
contextual purpose.
Managing your research
Research generally involves three major resources: print
media, interviews, and firsthand experience. When you see
the need for research, how should you go about it? Should
you do it all before writing your story or novel, or should
you write and research as you go along, filling in details as
you see the opportunity?
If the research is crucial to your storys character, plot,
and theme, you may want to do much of it before you begin
composing. Imagine the following: Lets say your protago-
nist is a traveler to France, fascinated by the countrys major
cultural icons: the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Ver-
sailles. Lets say he is especially captivated by Mont Saint
Michel, haunted by its architectural splendor and medieval
past. Imagine a story centered on this rocky tidal island. You
would need to describe it vividly, its location in Normandy,
its imposing beauty. How to do this? Watch YouTube videos,
look at Google images, read about it, but you must also go
there, take pictures, and spend some time if you wish to
capture this place in all its grandeur. You need to be fully
immersed in your subject before you begin. Think of it this
way: you cant write in a vacuum. You must know your sub-
Shutterstock
ject well whatever that subject is before starting to write.
(Of course, you can do further research as you compose.)
 If the research isnt crucial to the were going to have a secret affair, where the doomed lovers, who are trapped in
story as a whole, however, you can do would they rendezvous? If the main their own delusions. For McBrearty, it
it as you write. For instance, lets say character were to sleep with a 17-year- was important to select from his many
your protagonist flips houses. But your old, would you hold it against her? experiences the ones that captured the
story isnt centered on the work itself, From this informal research, Tseng setting but also related closely to char-
but rather on your protagonists per- chose stories that helped her develop acter and plot.
sonal struggles off the worksite. Still, both character and plot. Tseng
youll need to give your reader a good states,The librarians answers to my Final tips
sense for what your character does at questions changed the course of the Check facts carefully, but keep in
work. How do you hang drywall and book. I learned that more townspeople mind that as long as the world you
mud it? How do you install insulation? than I ever could have imagined were create has a strong air of reality,
How do you make everything meet committing transgressions on a daily you can get away with not being
code? You can take your time with basis; on any given day, the town was completely real-to-life.
your research, first focusing on charac- absorbing innumerable secrets. Decide on what needs to be
ter and plot, and then introduce details Short story writer Robert Garner researched and the resources you
about the work site as you get a strong McBreartys many menial jobs helped have. Do your research at the most
sense for them. him develop research materials for convenient time. The needs of
workplace stories. As a mental hospital your story or novel will determine
Selecting research details attendant, says McBrearty, I locked in the best approach.
Your research must be incorporated in visions of the smoky dayroom [with] Dont let the research overwhelm
the story so that it doesnt call atten- patients gazing at an old non-function- the work. Choose what you can
tion to itself. It must feel just right. You ing TV set, observed patients lined up use and let the rest go. If some-
may end up accumulating a lot of sticking out tongues to receive a cas- things truly irresistible but doesnt
research material, but even so, it must cade of pills, and participated in seclu- belong in a work, pocket it for
be carefully selected: just enough, not sions when patients were rushed to other possible stories.
too much. It has a clear function in the padded rooms. He used this work-
story. This function can naturally vary place research in his story The Acting Jack Smith is author of numerous articles,
from story to story, novel to novel. Class, when lovers meet at the hospi- reviews, and interviews, three novels, and a
For mystery writer Elizabeth Spann tal. A mental hospital, says book on writing, entitled Write and Revise for
Craig, author of Quilt or Innocence, McBrearty, is the perfect setting for Publication.
research aided her in adding texture
to scenes. She spoke with quilters and
consulted books and periodicals to
accurately portray the hobby. In her
use of research, she was careful not to
get off track, not to risk overloading
readers with details that didnt further
the plot. She explains: Quilting activi-
ties as well as a quilt shop provided
opportunities for the amateur sleuth to
more naturally interview the mysterys
suspects and witnesses.
For Jennifer Tseng, research was
important in fleshing out the plot of
her debut novel. Her work in an island
library, like her protagonists in Mayumi
and the Sea of Happiness, helped her
pick up plenty of good material from
colleagues. Every shift, I would ask the
ladies questions:How do people meet
people on this island? If two people
writermag.com The Writer | 13
Six literary agents weigh in on platform, publishing,
and why you should never address a query to dear sir.
BY MELISSA HART
A
literary agent can do a great deal for a writers
career help with the editing process of manu-
scripts and book proposals, negotiate a contract,
lobby for a higher advance or a two-book deal or a
book-to-film option. Who are these professionals dedicated
to literature and a roster of clients who rely on them for
everything from moral to legal support?
In June, I caught up with six agents based on their cli-
ents enthusiastic recommendations and asked them about
their perspectives on the industry, their pet peeves, and
their most beloved success stories.
They agreed universally that a sloppy query letter CCd to
dozens of agents at a time and addressed to Dear Agent
or with the recipients name misspelled or written as Dear
Sir (especially when the agent is female) inspires them to
hit delete. The best way to get an agents attention, they say,
is to craft a professional query letter full of intriguing details
about your manuscript and state clearly why you think he or
she is the perfect person to represent the project.
Some agents suggest that writers look at the
14 | The Writer October 2016
acknowledgements pages of published books similar to their
own for the name of the agent who represented it and then
send a targeted query with that information in mind. Others
advise writers to sit down with agents at writing conferences
to pitch their projects. Still others explain that recommen-
dations from their current clients carry a great deal of
weight, while some actively solicit writers who have written
a particularly powerful newspaper or magazine piece, or
writers with an interesting field of expertise.
MALAGA BALDI
Baldi Agency
Malaga Baldi calls herself a voyeur. I love
to hear about other peoples professions,
she says. Becoming a lawyer or medical
Anastasiia Gevko/Shutterstock
doctor or psychiatrist those types of
books are of interest to me.
Since launching her career as an independent agent in
1986, Baldi has represented books about becoming a musician
(Glenn Kurtzs Practicing), becoming a hustler (Rick
Whitakers Assuming the Position), and
becoming a drag queen (Daniel Harris
Diary of a Drag Queen). Now, shes on
the lookout for a book proposal about
how one becomes an architect.
Its one of the most difficult profes-
sions, she explains. They stay up all
night, and not only do they wear white
socks, but theyre very competitive. If
youre going to study architecture, she
adds, keep a journal the better to
write the book shes longing to represent.
Baldi specializes in literary fiction,
memoir, and cultural history, including
a reprint of Daniel Pools What Jane
Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew:
From Fox Hunting to Whist the Facts
of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century
England. Its the type of book I gravi-
tate to, she says, a story told in a new
and different way that can really open
your eyes about a subject, but everyone
thought it very academic and unpub-
lishable. She sold it for a modest
advance in 1992; since then, the book
has earned out its advance many times
and continues to earn royalties.
Many of Baldis clients write about
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgen-
der issues. Elizabeth Early (A Map of
Everything) was a 2014 Lambda Liter-
ary LGBT debut fiction finalist, and
gender-nonconforming author Kate
Bornstein celebrated the 20th anniver-
sary of the classic literary nonfiction
book Gender Outlaw with a re-release
through Vintage Press.
You see gay and lesbian characters
and issues and challenges all over the
place now, Baldi says. A whole bunch
of young adult publishers have gay and
lesbian novels for young readers,
which is fantastic. Characters in books
should represent everyone. Books
should be read by everyone.
Baldi has 21 books coming out in
2016. Shes particularly excited to be
pitching a book about Greenland, which
combines the history of the country
with the authors journal entries. I love
to place hybrid nonfiction, she says,
nonfiction that crosses many disci-
plines, in which the writer brings vari-
ous levels of expertise and knowledge
about the subject and somehow gets it to
read like a memoir that makes a topic I
knew nothing about just sing.
She advises writers to buy and read
books they love, and to study the parts
of those books that resonate, while
continuing to write and edit with the
help of a trusted critique group.
If you believe in your story, keep on
going out there and testing the waters,
she says. If youre a good writer, you boring. Theyre funny, snarky, and
will find an advocate who believes in
your work. Thats what its all about.
JENNIFER UNTER
The Unter Agency
Jennifer Unters least-
favorite question is
What trends do you
see in publishing?
People who follow
trends are not writing for themselves,
she says. Theyre just doing what
someone else tells them to do. Every-
one wants to write the next Harry Pot-
ter, but there is no next Harry Potter.
Its been done. The whole idea that
writers should write to a trend is
anathema to my own way of thinking.
She founded The Unter Agency in
2008; previous to becoming an inde-
pendent literary agent, she worked as
an editor, as a copyright lawyer, and as
a VP at a literary agency. In particular,
Unter gravitates toward books about
food and cooking, nature and the envi-
ronment, health and fitness, and travel
and adventure. She also represents
biographies, political and pop culture
books, and memoir.
Right now, shes particularly inter-
ested in narrative nonfiction such as
Justine Gubars Fanaticus: Mischief and
Madness in the Modern Sports Fan and
historical fiction like Donald Smiths
The Constables Tale, a crime novel set
in colonial America. Shes also passion-
ate about graphic novels. Theyre
basically comics that deal with real-life
issues. Theres so much interesting
material out there.
Unter also represents numerous
childrens authors, including Sue Fliess
and Christopher Pike. Theres been a
huge change in the content of chil-
drens literature, she says. You can
write anything for the teen set as long
as the protagonist is a child of a certain
age. You can write about sex, drugs,
drinking, suicide.
Even picture books have gotten
much more sophisticated, she notes.
For a while, everybody wanted ABC
books, something sweet. Sweet is now
straightforward.
Unter believes that writers hoping
to find an agent would do well to
attend writing conferences and take
advantage of the chance to sit down
with one or more agents face-to-face.
Nervous about pitching your project?
She says writers should relax.
Im not going to bite you, she says.
Im here to help you. You dont have
to be perfect; agents just want to hear
what you have to say. Think of it as a
conversation with a friend about what
youre working on.
Shes also open to getting emailed
query letters from people who have
attended a conference at which shes
appeared. Remember that this is a com-
munity, and were all in this together,
she says. Publishing is alive and well,
and all the doom and gloom we heard
about for years is really just not happen-
ing. Join a writers group, do your home-
work, go to conferences, work on your
writing, and you will get published.
JIM MCCARTHY
Dystel & Goderich
Literary Management
When Jim McCarthy
began his career as a
literary agent 14 years
ago, he primarily rep-
resented urban fantasy and paranormal
romance. Ive always had a leaning
toward the more fantastical, he says, so
Im best known for things that dabble in
some way in the worlds of fantasy.
These days, he represents psychic
intuitive and New York Times best-
selling author Victoria Laurie and
cryptologist Linda Godfrey. Im inter-
ested in people whose understanding
writermag.com The Writer | 15
MALAGA BALDI JENNIFER UNTER
of the world is so distinctive, who see
things through a lens that most people
dont, McCarthy says. For example,
Godfreys book American Monsters is
all about research into unexplained
creatures and beings. Shes a fascinat-
ing woman who takes a scientific
approach that I find constantly sur-
prising and interesting.
McCarthy notes that the grassroots
organization We Need Diverse Books
has had a powerful impact on publish-
ing over the past two years. People
want to read varied perspectives, he
says, and a lot of publishers and
agents who wouldnt take a chance
before are finally responding, thanks to
the work of a dedicated group of activ-
ists who have done remarkable things,
particularly for the childrens market.
Recently, he announced a deal for
pediatric cardiologist Ismee Amiel Wil-
liamss novel, tentatively titled Broken
Angel. Its the story of a 15-year-old girl
in New York City who becomes preg-
nant and wants to keep the baby despite
the discovery of its rare heart defect.
Everyone wants her to have an abor-
tion. Shes poor and from a broken
home, and she believes the child will be
someone to love her, McCarthy says. It
felt so honest, written by a pediatric car-
diologist able to dive into the experi-
ences of people she saw in her practice.
McCarthy notes that we dont nec-
essarily see characters struggling with
these big-picture issues unless theyre
white and middle-class. Williams
character is Latina, has been aban-
doned by her mother, has a father in
prison, and lives with a grandmother
who doesnt seem to especially care for
her, he explains. She is a teenager
16 | The Writer October 2016
REGINA BROOKS
whose circumstances are too rarely
depicted and who, in Broken Angel, is
vivid and real and thoughtful and
intelligent. Her perspective is one that
Im thrilled to see shared.
McCarthy believes that authors
looking for an agent to share their
work with publishers must be persis-
tent. Many of his clients received rejec-
tions from him on their first
manuscript, or requests for revision
and resubmission. One of my clients
sent me the first query shed ever
emailed me, he says. Shed gotten a
Dear Author letter from me, and later,
a personal rejection. The third time
she queried him, he signed her on and
sold her book at auction.
I want people to remember that as
tough and competitive as this business
is, they just need to keep writing and
keep trying, he says. Keeping hope
alive is the key to success.
REGINA BROOKS
Serendipity Literary
Agency
Before she became an
agent, Regina Brooks
worked for NASA.
My goal was to make
sure when payloads went up with the
shuttle, they wouldnt fall apart, she
says, comparing the work to editing
her clients manuscripts before sending
them to publishers.
Where is this book falling apart,
where are characters not yet three-
dimensional, where is the voice not yet
authentic? she explains. As an editor,
youre troubleshooting the manuscript.
Brooks has selected the agents who
work with her at Serendipity Literary
AYESHA PANDE
Agency for their expertise in various
content areas, rather than genres.
Some colleagues specialize in social
media; others were or are publicists or
attorneys or people whove come from
a background in ghostwriting.
One of the big roles of an agency
today is to look at the book as content
and to see how it can be sold in all
these different ways, book to film,
book to television, book to product,
she says. The people who are making
money in the industry are taking the
books content and leveraging it in a
360-degree way.
Serendipity sponsors the YA Dis-
covery Contest, won last year by Olivia
Cole. As a winner, you can submit
your full manuscript for evaluation,
Brooks explains. Coles manuscript, a
fantasy novel titled The Whitecoats
Daughter, sold to Harper Collins in a
two-book deal.
Brooks attends 25 conferences a
year, speaking with up to 30 writers
each time. Of those 30, she says, 11
or so are interested in writing memoir,
and five out of those are writing breast
cancer recovery memoir. Its so difficult
to let them know Ive heard that story
before, especially when theyre telling
about such a horrendous experience.
To help potential memoirists iden-
tify what makes their book unique, she
co-wrote You Should Really Write a
Book: How to Write, Sell, and Market
Your Memoir. (Look for our "How I
Write" interview with Brooks in our
November issue.) There are three
things that editors look for: hook,
incredible writing, and platform,
Brooks says. The information in this
book is for people who are unknown
but who have an interesting story a
story thats going to be universal and
transformative to a particular group.
She likes to compare writing to
singing karaoke. On any given Thurs-
day, you can go into a karaoke bar and
listen to people sing, she says, and
usually theres one person who really
slams the cover song. But that person
still has to be trained in how to dance
and how to capture an audience.
Similarly, she says, even the most
talented writers must learn to craft a
book proposal and a query letter and
hone all the other skills that go into
writing a book. When she trains her
junior agents, she cautions them not to
get sold on the fact that a potential cli-
ent can carry a tune.
We want people, she explains,
who are going to sing at Madison
Square Garden and the Met.
AYESHA PANDE
Pande Literary
Ayesha Pande adores
her clients. I respect
them and what theyre
doing, she says. It
goes way beyond busi-
ness, which isnt always the smartest
and most savvy thing in the world, but
thats what works for me.
Pande runs a small boutique agency
with just three agents. Each of us
looks for something slightly different,
she says, but were all drawn to under-
represented voices and stories that in
some way encapsulate the experience
of being other, whether thats belong-
ing to a particular religious group, hav-
ing a multiracial identity, or a
particular gender identity.
One of her clients is Lisa Ko, whose
novel, The Leavers, follows an undocu-
mented Chinese immigrant who comes
to New York and has a child, then dis-
appears. Im just so happy to be a part
of it, Pande says. Shes worked on it
for a very long time. People who work
diligently to practice their craft I have
so much admiration for them. I feel
really honored and grateful to be a part
of their life in some way.
Another of her clients, Jonathan Levi,
wrote his novel Septimania 25 years
after the publication of his first book, A
Guide for the Perplexed. We worked on
it together for a very long time, Pande
says. Hes singularly talented and very
hardworking, but it was quite challeng-
ing to find a publisher for it.
She sent out the manuscript,
received numerous rejections, and then
worked on it further with Levi. At last,
Overlook bought it. An amazingly
experienced publisher in the world of
literary fiction, and theyve done a
beautiful job of publishing it, Pande
says of the company. Weve sold it in
several different languages and are
hoping to publish it in several more.
Pande believes authors should pol-
ish their manuscripts to the best of
their ability before they begin to
approach agents. Now that youve ticularly interested right now in
worked so hard on writing your book,
she says, you need to take searching
for agents seriously. You do your
homework and spend a lot of time on
your query letter, and include in your
query why you are querying me, and
what makes you think our agency is
particularly suitable for your book.
She advises authors not to send out
100 queries at once. Just pick those
agents that you actually think will do
the best job, she says. And dont rush
the process.
She herself looks for people who
respect the craft and art of writing.
People who arent just sitting down
and filling a few notebooks, and then
deciding that theyve now written a
book, she says. You wouldnt want to
immediately start performing in Carn-
egie Hall before youve practiced your
violin for 10 or 20 years. Writing is no
different. Its hard show me that you
have respect for it.
STEVEN MALK
Writers House
This years Newbery
Award winner, Matt de
La Pea, phoned his
agent, Steven Malk, at
4:30 in the morning to
tell him the news about his picture
book, Last Stop on Market Street. I
knew it was a special book when it
came out, Malk says. It struck a chord
with people. It has a lot to say, and it
presents a different perspective that I
think is really important.
Malk, one of numerous agents at
Writers House, represents both chil-
drens authors and illustrators. Hes par-
representing mysteries with complex
characters and plots. While hes solicited
some of his clients, hes found others in
the slush pile. Theres nothing more
exciting than opening a letter or email
and finding something super exciting,
he says. Its an incredible feeling.
One client who dazzled him is pic-
ture book author and illustrator
Corinna Luyken. She submitted a few
writermag.com The Writer | 17
things last year, he says. I liked
them, but I didnt think they were
quite there for me.
Malk gave her the names of
three agents he liked. Instead, she
wrote and told him she thought
they were meant to work together,
and asked if hed be open to seeing
something else when it was ready.
She sent me something new, he
says, and it was really intriguing, a
clear step up from where shed been
before. I had a lot of notes on it; we
went back and forth on well over 20
different versions, and then eventu-
ally, I signed her on.
Luykens book went to auction
and sold in a two-book deal, the first
of which The Book of Mistakes
will debut next year. Slow down,
Malk says. Be patient. Believe in
yourself, and believe that publication
can happen it will happen. These
are clichs for a reason Corinna is
a perfect example of someone who
took a long path to publication.
He cites client Sara Pennypacker
as another example of an author who
shows tremendous patience and
determination. She got a later start
as an author, he says. She wrote her
first book 20 years ago, had success
with a series called Clementine, and
now shes made it all the way to the
top with Pax, about a boy and his pet
fox that get separated in a war. Its on
the best-seller list.
Pennypacker is the real deal,
Malk says: an author who works
hard and writes what she believes
in. He notes that writers sometimes
get discouraged, feeling like their
first book needs to be a best-seller.
But every case is different, he says.
Every writer is different. You have
to remain open to different possi-
bilities. If youre working really
hard and trying to get better, good
things tend to happen.
Melissa Hart is the author of the middle-
grade novel Avenging the Owl and the
memoirs Wild Within and Gringa. Web:
melissahart.com.
18 | The Writer October 2016
SUBMISSION SINS
Getting out of the slush pile starts with avoiding
these deadly agent submission mistakes.
BY SAM HARRISON
A
s a young aspiring writer, I was
fortunate enough to go to col-
lege in New York, the heart of
American publishing. I hoped learning
how the publishing industry worked
would give me an edge, some kind of
insiders insight into a world I knew
nothing about.
With this in mind, I began an
internship at a small boutique literary
agency in the city. Over the course of
eight months, I read hundreds of sub-
missions and dozens of manuscripts. I
learned about agents, editors, and the
journey a book must take to get out of
the slush pile and onto a bookshelf.
Agencies often use interns to screen
the unsolicited submissions. For a
manuscript to make it to the agents, it
first has to grab the attention of an
intern. I dont think I ever figured out
what combination of talent, luck, and
hard work makes a writer stand out
enough to land them an agent. How-
ever, I did learn to spot the manuscripts
that would never make it out of the
slush pile; not necessarily because their
writing was bad, but because there were
mistakes in their submissions that
raised red flags and automatically dis-
qualified them from consideration.
As a writer-in-training myself, I felt
real sympathy for writers who were
sending their material out into the
scary unknown. But I also became
frustrated when I saw writers make
mistakes that were easy to avoid. Most
of these mistakes came from an
authors negligence or misinformation.
I cant stop people from being lazy,
but I can break down what submission
mistakes to avoid when sending out
your manuscripts. Following this
advice doesnt guarantee you will get
your manuscript past a new generation
of interns and into agents hands, but
you will at least be evaluated on the
quality of your submission rather than
the carelessness of your faux pas.
Follow the agencys guidelines.
Yes, this is so obvious it shouldnt be
worth including. And yet, every day, at
least 30 to 50 percent of the submis-
sions I read did not follow the agencys
guidelines, which were clearly stated
on the website.
Submission guidelines are posted on
every agencys website. Read them and
follow them, or risk being tossed in the
trash before anyone reads a word. Make
sure the agent you are querying still
works at the agency, represents the
genre you write, and can be found at
the email address you are using.
Ignoring guidelines doesnt just
annoy agents, it also shows you didnt
do your research before submitting.
Write a killer query letter.
A query letter is an introduction to you
and your writing. The biggest mistake
you can make is to send out a vague,
confusing, or poorly written query. If
youre not sure what a query letter
should look like, there are many
resources online that break it down to
help you get started.
Even writers who put a sincere
effort into writing a query can still
miscalculate because they are too close
to their own work. Make sure you dont
include confusing information just
because it makes sense in the book. A
query is too short for lengthy explana-
tions, so avoid anything that will con-
fuse an agent meeting the work for the
first time. The best remedy is to have
someone who has never read the man-
uscript look at the query and point out
misleading passages.
Make things easy for the agent.
The easiest way to make sure your
manuscript will get past the interns is
to make it as easy as possible to read.
Dont send an email that only contains
a link to a website that redirects to a
page with music and light-blue text on
a burgundy background (yes, this
really happened). Unless the agency
requests otherwise, post all content in
the body of the email and make sure
your contact information is clearly vis-
ible. Dont call the agency to check the
status of your submission or query sev-
eral manuscripts in a single submis-
sion. Avoid typos and grammar
mistakes. Proofread. The neater the
submission, the better your chance of
getting a response.
Let your writing do the talking.
Some writers clutter their submissions
with extra materials. My agency once
received a box with shredded newspa-
per and a pair of baby shoes with a
submission. Adding extras wont make
your submission stand out; most likely,
it will make the recipients uncomfort-
able. Do you want an agent to remem-
ber your submission because of the
amazing story and great writing, or
because you included a photo of your
dog? Trust your writing to stand out
on its own.
In a similar vein, no agent wants to
hear a newbie say I guarantee this
book will sell a million copies or other
larger-than-life statements. Dont try to
talk the agent into seeing how great the
manuscript is; let her see how great the
writing is for herself.
The writing is the most important
part. Everything else your
credentials, the glitter and streamers
you included in the package, the list
of 40 agents who have already
rejected the manuscript is just
noise. Dont bother trying to use the
essay your high school paper pub-
lished about your summer vacation
as a writing credential, or name-
dropping agents or editors who have
no idea who you are (yes, this also
happened). Agents see right through
these tactics.
This list of ultimatums and rules
may sound bleak, but there is a silver
lining: agents love books. They love
reading and good writing; its the rea-
son they got into this business in the
first place. So be kind to yourself, be
hopeful, and keep submitting. Just
make sure you do it the right way.
Sam Harrison is a current writer and former
publishing intern.

Our Darkest Hours

Write a 2,000-word fictional short story using any nuance,
definition or understanding of the word dark:

After dark
Deep, dark secrets
A dark horse
The dark side of the moon
The lines gone dark
Dont leave me in the dark

DEADLINE: November 15th, 2016

GRAND PRIZE: $1,000 and publication in our magazine
Learn more at writermag.com/contests

CONTEST
writermag.com The Writer | 19
 PORTRAIT OF A
MODERN NOVELIST
best-selling author caroline leavitt has had
both towering highs and staggering lows in her
long career. heres what shes learned after 11
novels and several decades in the industry.

by nicki porter

20 | The Writer October 2016

 riters always gun for the hows
W and whys behind the latest best-
selling smashes. We cant help it. We
ask: How did you do it? What are you doing
that Im not? How did you get to be so talented?
And: What makes you so special?
The harsh reality is that the vast majority
of us will not pen the next Eat, Pray, Love or
Gone Girl. Frankly, if we all knew exactly
what it takes to go viral or pen a smash best-
seller, wed all have done so by now.
So how refreshing it was to call up Caro-
line Leavitt on a sunny morning in June and
hear her talk candidly about all the moments
in her career, not just the best-selling ones.
Granted, Leavitt is no stranger to success; her
ninth novel, the New York Times best-seller
Pictures of You, was a massive hit, undergoing
several printings before the book was even
released. Her follow-up, Is This Tomorrow,
was both a New York Times and a USA Today
best-seller. And her latest novel, Cruel Beauti-
ful World, due out from Algonquin in Octo-
ber, is already stacking up positive reviews.
But behind that long line of success are
decades worth of real hardship. Here Leavitt
shares what I consider to be the real life of
a modern-day novelist: There will be high
points, there will be harsh blows, and you
will probably have to teach, consult, or edit
to make ends meet. All you can do is return
to the writing, day after day and never,
x
ever give up.
Was there a specific moment you decided
to become a novelist? Or did you just
always know?
There was a specific moment. And it actu-
ally was when I was a little girl: I grew up in
this very working-class neighborhood of
Waltham [Massachusetts]. I was a Jewish
kid and I also had really bad asthma, so I
was bullied a lot. I spent a lot of time at the
library, and I was always asking for books
about kids like me. And of course the
librarian could never find any.
So I just decided, You know what? If
there are no books for kids like me, then
Im going to write them for me. And I
started writing stories about this little Jew-
ish girl with really bad asthma. My parents
thought it was very cute and sweet, and my
teachers thought, Oh, thats nice, but I was
determined. I just always knew it was going
to happen.
How have you changed as a writer since then?
Ive changed a lot. I got published when I
was in my 20s, and my first novel was a sen-
sation. And I thought, Oh my God! Its
going to be like this all the time!
Then books two through eight were fail-
ures. I had five different publishers. Three of
them went out of business. Two of them did
nothing for the book and wouldnt take my
calls. So I would get reviews, good critical
reviews, but I had no sales whatsoever.
My ninth book, Pictures of You, was on
contract with a big publisher, and the edi-
tor called me up and said Im sorry. Were
not going to publish this. I just dont think
its special.
I started to cry. I said, What do you
mean? Can can I make it special?
She said, No, nobody here thinks that
you can.
I said Well, can I send you something else?
There was a silence, and she said No, I
dont think so.
I hung up the phone thinking, Well,
thats it, my career is totally over, because no
ones going to want somebody whos had
eight failed books, no matter what the
reviews had been. This is it.
A NOVEL
IN THE MAKING
Caroline Leavitt walks us
through her process for crafting
best-selling novels.
STEP 1:
THE MORAL QUESTION
Leavitt starts each book with
a probing moral question.
Its good to know the ques-
tion that the book is asking so I
know how the book is going to
be answering it, she says. In
Is This Tomorrow, it was How
do you find community when
youre an outsider?
The question in Leavitts
latest novel, Cruel Beautiful
World, was What do you do
when theres something you
want to fix, and you cant?
Those are the kind of moral
questions I think give the book an
extra layer. They make the book
more meaningful, Leavitt says.
writermag.com The Writer | 21
I love to write, and thats
what Im going to keep on So I called my agent, and she said Dont
doing, no matter if Im worry, dont worry, and I called all my
writer friends sobbing hysterically, and one
published again. of them said, You know what? I have an
editor who I love at Algonquin Books. Why
dont you just write what the book is about,
and Ill see if she wants to take a look at it.
So I did. And the editor, who was Andra
Miller, said, This looks interesting. Id like
to see the whole novel.
I sent her the whole novel, and two weeks
later, she called me up and she said, We all
love it here. We want to buy it.
I said, Do you know who I am? I really
dont sell books.
She said, You will now.
It was amazing. They took that little non-
special book and they got it into [several]
printings before it was even published. It
made the New York Times Book Review.
They just gave me my career back.
So the way that Ive changed is that I
dont think in terms of success so much
anymore. Because I know how things can
happen: You can have success, and then it
can be taken away from you. Then you can

STEP 2: MAPPING OUT CHARACTERS

Before Leavitt starts any novel, she asks
herself the following questions about each
of her characters.
What does she want at the beginning
of the novel and why? And whats at
stake if she doesnt get it?
There has to be something at stake. It has
to be something really major. I mean, if she
just wants a glass of water, thats not
really interesting.
What happened to her early in her life
that caused her to have this concep-
tion about what she wants?
If she was very poor as a child, she might
think that money buys happiness. Thats a
misconception. Thats not right. And that
could be keeping her from what she
needs, which might be doing work that
she loves but doesnt pay very well, or
22 | The Writer October 2016
finding love with someone who doesnt
have money.
What is her ghost?
The ghost is the thing that haunts you
from your past that keeps you from get-
ting what you want. It can be a fear it
can be anything.
Whats her plan? How does it fail and
actually make things worse?
Thats sort of the middle of the book, where
the more obsessively she tries to get what
she wants, the more the plan is failing.
Whats her Big Doom?
The Big Doom is when all shes got,
everything shes tried, has backfired.
Shes not getting what she wants. And
something else has to happen that makes
her have a self-revelation where she
realizes, I was wrong about this. I dont
want this anymore. What I need is some-
thing different. Then she can go back and
start realizing the deeper issues of what
shes going after. And she can change her
life in some way."
Whats her new equilibrium?
Thats showing the character in a new way
of being. And it doesnt have to be happy, it
doesnt have to be sad, its just that she gets
what she needs, and theres always a cost."
How does it end for the character?
I like to end novels with what I call a nev-
erending story, which means that every-
thing isnt tied up neatly in a bow. You end
the novel, and the reader hopefully feels
satisfied, but then the reader still is think-
ing about the character and wondering
Well, whats she going to do next?
have it again. So I just really focus more on
the work. I love to write, and thats what Im
going to keep on doing, no matter if Im
published again (or not published again).
All of your books end with this wonderful
two-page, three-page list of acknowledg-
ments of the people who have helped you
bring the novel together. How important is
community to you?
Its totally important. I spent the beginning
of my writing life on my own, all alone. I
was too shy to show anything to anybody.
And all of a sudden the internet
exploded, and I had all these writer-friends
and a writing community. You could ask
them questions! You could Skype them and
you wouldnt have to leave your desk!
I have three writing friends who email or
Skype every day just to check in: Hows the
work going? Would you read something?
Okay, let me read something of yours back. . .
When you find someone who has your
same sensibility, its just amazing. Its just
totally amazing. I feel like its really impor-
tant to have a writers community, to help
other writers, and to be able to ask for
help yourself.
How do you think a writer should go about
building a community?
Probably the same way I did it: Go to a lot of
readings, talk to a lot of people. Dont ask
them things. [Dont] go to a reading with a
copy of your manuscript and ask people to
read it.
Try to talk to people about things in
life. Like if they have brownies they bake,
you talk about brownie recipes. And you
do the same thing on social media. You get
on Twitter and Facebook, and you find
writers you admire and you dont talk to
them about writing. You just wait until
they say something about their dog or
their cat, and you get to know them as a
person, and see if you like them as a per-
son and if theyre like you.
And what happens is when you do form a
connection, then people say You know
what? We should have lunch. Then you have STEP 3:
lunch, and thats how you make friends. THE WRITERS SYNOPSIS
I know a lot of people say Social media Once Leavitt has her charac-
is terrible, the relationships arent real, but ters lined up, she drafts a
they are real. Some of my closest writer 30-page writers synopsis
friends [are] people Ive met online, just that she shares with friends
from interactions and having conversations who point out the plot holes.
with them. Then she pages through the
synopsis and circles the
A lot of your reviews say things like Its themes she sees in red ink.
gripping, but its beautiful; its lyrical, but it The themes that she wants
also turns pages. How do keep those to write first become her first
pages turning? Is that something youre draft. This way, I dont feel
conscious of? overwhelmed by the writing,
I wish I knew. I have no idea. When Im she says.
writing, I always think, This is so boring.
Whos gonna want to read this? STEP 4:
But part of it is something that I learned REVISION
from Robert McKee, [a] story structure Leavitt next goes through
guru. He talks about something called the rewrites and rewrites and
negation of the negation. What this means rewrites; she says she puts
is that you always want your characters to be together eight to 10 drafts
in peril, but you want to make it as bad as before she shows a manuscript
you can. to her agent.
So if you have something bad like, say,
youre getting married and your partner
doesnt show up. Well, thats bad. But the
negation of the negation would be: OK,
youre getting married. Not only does your
partner not show up, but your partner runs
away with your mom.
And then you think, Well, whats worse
than that? And whats worse than that
would be, Your partner runs away with
your mom, and they both get in a car acci-
dent and your mom survives, but your
partner doesnt.
So you always try to think in terms of
what would be worse, what would be
harder for these characters. Because those
are the moments when people really show
their best selves. Also, those are the things
that people dont really talk about a lot, but
they want to know about. Were sort of
afraid of it. So as a writer, you go into those
dark places, and I think thats what keeps
the pages turning.
But its never anything conscious with
me. I never really know what Im doing.
writermag.com The Writer | 23
STEP 6:
COLLABORATING AND
ADDING EXTRA LAYERS
Leavitt undergoes tons of
rewrites with her agent and
then her editor. My agent
made me rewrite Pictures of
You five times, she says.
Then her editor asked for
another three rewrites.
Sound like torture? Not for
Leavitt: The thing is, when
youre rewriting that much and
that intensely, you start to love
it, she says. Because you
realize the difference that add-
ing an extra little layer makes.
It just deepens the story and
makes it more rich and probes
such deeper questions. Rewrit-
ing is actually my favorite part.
My agent and my editor both
want me to succeed, and theyre
very warm and theyre wonder-
ful. So I feel like theyre on my
side. Theyre sort of collaborating
with me in a way, and it makes it
a lot easier when youre just
writing on [your] own.
24 | The Writer October 2016
Whats your best advice to other writers?
Never, ever, ever give up, because you never
know whats going to happen. And dont lis-
ten to what people tell you. When I was in
high school, my English teacher told me
that I was a horrible writer, that I would
never be a writer. In college, I took a class
with a professor who at the time was a
famous writer. He told me at the end of class
that my work was garbage, and I would
never make it, and I should think about
being a nursery school teacher instead. I
didnt listen. I didnt listen! I was devastated,
but I kept writing and writing and two years
later, I published my first novel. I sent a
copy of it along with the New York Times
review to the professor with a note saying
You were wrong!
So you cant listen to what people say.
There are always going to be people telling
you you cant do this, or I dont like this. people, so they dont have to worry about
There are so many writers who have gotten
80,000 rejections and then suddenly they
sell a book and its a huge critical and com-
mercial success. So you never know. Just
keep writing.
Also, write what you want to write. Do
not follow the market. Do not look at the
books [that] are best-sellers and think,
That book is selling, Im going to write that
too! No. Write for yourself first, and thats
how it will become universal.
What would you say is the most difficult part
of being a writer?
The first is a practical thing: Paying the bills.
Before Pictures of You, it was really difficult,
because I had to have a day job as well as
find time to write, and I couldnt have a day
job that was so all-encompassing that it
would use up all of my mental facilities. So I
had to find these jobs that would pay
enough but yet would be stupid enough so
I could do them without really thinking.
Thats really hard.
Even today, I still do other stuff because I
have a son in college. And other writers I
know, they still teach, or they do manuscript
consulting, or theyre married to wealthy
that. Thats the main issue.
The other issue is learning to deal with
the solitude. You have to love it. I never
liked going to a job-job, where you had to
socialize all the time and you had to go to
meetings and that kind of stuff. I love the
solitude of being at home, making a sched-
ule for myself and not procrastinating too
Never, ever,
ever give
up, because
you never
know whats
going to
happen.
much. And thats something thats difficult
that you have to learn.
And the last part is you have to have
faith that you can do this, and that you
believe in yourself, and youre not going to
let anybody stop you. Because those are the
people who make it: The ones who dont
give up, who have the grit to keep going on
and persevering no matter what. And then
finally you will find success that way. Im
sure of it.
How did you find time to write when you
were holding down a day job?
It was really hard. It was really, really hard.
And the first thing was that I hated the job. I
mean, I hated the 9-to-5.
So my goal was always: I have to get out
of here. I would write on my lunch hours,
and then I would get yelled at for not going
out with coworkers for lunch. I would
carve out 2 hours each night to write. I
would write on the weekends. I was really
lucky to have such an understanding hus-
band who also kept weird hours, because
hes a writer and editor, too. But whats dif-
ficult is I work all the time. We both work
all the time now. But its work we love, so it
doesnt seem like work. You just have to be
really disciplined, and you have to really
want it. No matter what.
Last question, and I know its one you always
end with when you interview other writers:
What havent I asked you that I should have?
This is a question that writers always want
to know: How do you get your book to the
movies? Thats the big payoff.
And the answer to that question is: You
just dont give up, and you have to realize
that the movie business is a thousand times
worse than the book business because
theres so much money at stake. People will
promise you everything and deliver noth-
ing, and most movies dont get made. So its
like winning the lottery. Its fine to think
about it and imagine it, but dont get your
hopes up.
Ive had options of five of my novels,
and I actually had a deal that was made at
Sundance for Pictures of You. This big star
was going to star in it and direct it, and
there was money behind it. And then the
big star was offered another film for more
money, and that was it. The deal fell
through. And once the deal fell through, it
was sort of like nobody wants to pick it up,
because then they think, well, it fell
through, so I dont want to take something
that fell through, whatever the reason. So
you just never know.
Nicki Porter is the senior editor of The Writer.
FINAL STEP:
START SOMETHING NEW
When a manuscript is finalized
and ready for publication,
Leavitt doesnt take a vacation
from writing to focus on the
upcoming book; instead, she
starts something new. After
Cruel Beautiful World, the first
thing I did was start a book,
she says. I felt like I had to be
invested in the new book so I
couldnt think about how Cruel
Beautiful World was doing out
in the world.
I just think that its better
not to think about how well a
book is going to do or not,
because it can make you
crazy, she says. I have to just
concentrate on what I love,
which is the writing.
writermag.com The Writer | 25
CURIOUS AND
CURIOUSER
Do you have what it takes to become
a modern science writer?
BY REBECCA A. HILL
O
n her last day in New Caledonia, Jennifer Ackerman
drove to the top of Mount Koghi in search of the elu-
sive New Caledonian crow. At the top of the mountain,
met by a brilliantly green rainforest and the towering
Koghi Kauri trees, she plunged into the forest in search of
the birds, only to encounter failing light and massive spider
webs. She never found the crows but heard their raspy calls
in the darkness. Yet Ackerman, author of The Genius of
Birds, isnt an ornithologist; rather, shes a science writer
driven by a passion to learn.
Everyone knows that scientists have to be curious.
Its often innate in the scientist. But its also
instinctive in the science writer. Science writers
feel a need to learn about the world and what
makes it tick. Instead of simply reading about
the Asian arowana, the worlds most coveted
fish, journalist Emily Voigt traveled to southeast
Asia on a quest to find them. Author Deborah
Bloom ventured into laboratories that used primates for
research in order to provide an eyewitness account for her
book The Monkey Wars. Yet while this appetite for learning
is certainly a most important trait, its not the only charac-
teristic that makes a science writer.
A common misperception is that you have to be a scien-
tist to write about science. True, some writers do have sci-
ence experience, but thats hardly the norm. Ackerman
started as a humanities major. Voigt, a journalism major.
Blum and John Fleischman were also journalists. All you
need, says Blum, is a driving need to tell the story.
But Blum also concedes that science writing is not as
event-driven as traditional journalism. Its a process, she
says. While reporting may be tied to a specific discovery or
a published paper, that event is artificial, says Dan Ferber,
26 | The Writer October 2016
writer and editor of Mechanical Engineering magazine.
These papers and discoveries are actually just one blip in a
long process. Science writers need to show the whole time-
line: where the story originated, who it affected, how it was
discovered, and what its global impact was or will be.
When freelance writer and OZY contributor Melissa
Pandika wrote the story Air Pollution Causes Epigenetic
Changes that May Trigger Asthma for Discover magazine,
she followed Dr. Kari Nadeau as the physician worked
with San Joaquin Childrens Health and Air Pollution
Study researchers. She also met afflicted patients and
their families in Nadeaus practice at Stanfords
Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital. Pandikas
story not only reflected their stories but showed
how air pollution of Fresno County caused
asthma-inducing epigenetic changes that
affected generations of residents. To write a story
like this, says Pandika, you have to remember that
science never happens in a vacuum. It doesnt just hap-
pen in a lab. There are so many people involved in the
work, says Pandika.
Contextualizing any discovery or new technology is crit-
ical, says Ferber, because it helps answer the question of
why the news is important and timely. But anchoring it to a
particular human element is what makes it compelling. For
me, it is really telling the stories of science as the stories of
people doing science, says Ferber. Its about the people and
the work that they are doing.
Often that human perspective manifests itself in a narra-
VectorPot/Shutterstock
tive story. A good narrative science story needs two ele-
ments: strong characters and gripping action, says Voigt,
author of The Dragon Behind the Glass. In writing about the
Asian arowana fish, which often fetches up to $150,000 on
the tropical fish market, she encountered the colorful
ichthyologist Heiko Bleher, who ultimately became one
of the most intriguing characters in her book. In fact,
Voigt wasnt convinced about writing about tropical fish
until she met Bleher. In Heiko, I saw a character fasci-
nating enough to carry a long narrative. He is someone
who couldnt be figured out easily, says Voigt. I also
suspected that Heiko would lead me to great action,
which he did though not at all how I imagined it.
Certainly the stereotype of a scientist in a white coat
and safety glasses in a lab is true, but scientists come in
all forms (and uniforms). But one thing they generally
have in common is that their work comes first, and
communicating that works outcome second. Some-
times they need a translator, someone who can tell their
story in plain English for the rest of us. And sometimes
they just need someone to sort through all the noise
and constant discoveries to curate what really matters
in the field.
Writer Hallie Siegel decided to help found Robohub,
a nonprofit online communication platform, because
the overwhelming amount of information being
reported in the robotics industry made it difficult to
distinguish between good, bad, and just plain false con-
tent. Since robotics is an interdisciplinary field, coordi-
nating the varied voices from robotics professionals was
challenging but necessary. Robotics is about system
design and making systems work together, says Siegel.
So you have to be able to communicate clearly between
all the disciplines. Assembling viewpoints and clarify-
ing the language of highly technical people is essential,
says Siegel, because it empowers people to make
informed decisions.
Ultimately, a science writers job is to translate sci-
ence into English, says Fleischman, editor of the Ameri-
can Society of Cell Biology. Every experiment is a story.
Theres a beginning, middle, and the end. There is a rea-
son why it was done, the way it was done, and what it
ultimately means. Thats the story. Unfortunately, says
Fleischman, scientists are not trained to think in those
terms. Its up to the science writer to find the narrative
and make science accessible.
So ask yourself: Would you know about climate
change, genetics, or robotics without the science
writer? Probably not. Which is why science writing is
so essential to a modern society. We all need the navi-
gation skills that a basic science understanding can
bring to us, says Blum, so we can make smart deci-
sions for the future.
Rebecca Hill is a freelance writer who writes on science education,
robotics, artificial intelligence, education, literacy, and parenting/
family issues. She has been published in a variety of national online
and print magazines. Web: rebeccaahill.com.
Tips from the experts
I am not afraid to ask a dumb question. If I dont know
something or they are talking about something over my
head, I am not afraid to say, Wait a second! What
are you talking about? How does it work?
DAN FERBER
I try not to overdo it [when using analogies]. Im selective
about it and very strategic about where visual cues might help
to explain a difficult concept. MELISSA PANDIKA
When I interview a scientist, I tend to over-prepare. I bone
up. I read their papers. Then I go to the interview and, a lot of
times, I realize the story that they have to tell is not the story
that I was prepared to tell. So be open to whatever new infor-
mation comes your way and follow that storyline.
JENNIFER ACKERMAN
Scientists are often suspicious about whether or not you
know what they are doing. So do your homework. Use Google
Scholar, cross search it for their citations, [and] then build a
research picture of the scientist and their work.
DEBORAH BLUM
Reading scientific papers can be overwhelming because
there is a lot of hard-to-understand detail, math, and words. I
start first with these sections: The abstract, which summa-
rizes key points; the introduction; any sections dealing with
the works relevance; [and] then the conclusion. Then I go back
and read the whole paper. HALLIE SIEGEL
More tips
If you need research sites, consider signing up for various
journals like Science, Nature, publications from the Insti-
tute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and news
alerts from Robohub, Robotic Trends, or EurekAlert! Sci-
ence News. Sign up for university press releases, too.
If you are serious about being a science writer, check out
the National Association of Science Writers, Knight Sci-
ence Journalism @MITs The Open Notebook, the Council
for the Advancement of Science Writing, or the Association
of Health Care Journalists.
Read The Science Writers Handbook: Everything You
Need to Know to Pitch, Publish, and Prosper in the Digital
Age by the Writers of SciLance or A Field Guide for Sci-
ence Writers by Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, and Robin
Marantz Henig.
 Road to
a Memoir Two-time memoirist Elena Gorokhova shares
how she illuminates the past on the page.
BY PAT OLSEN
A
long with memoirists like Frank
McCourt (Angelas Ashes) and Ish-
mael Beah (A Long Way Gone:
Memoirs of a Boy Soldier), author
Elena Gorokhova recounts the immigrant
experience in her case, leaving the Soviet
Union in 1980. In her 2010 book, A Moun-
tain of Crumbs, Gorokhova tells of coming to
the U.S. at age 24 with only one suitcase.
Reviewers have noted that her memoir not
only portrays life under communism during
the Cold War but is also a coming of age
story and an exploration of a difficult
mother-daughter relationship.
After reading her debut book, which chron-
icled her childhood and early 20s in Soviet
Russia, a number of readers asked to know
more, and Gorokhova obliged with a second
memoir, Russian Tattoo, a continuation of her
life as an migr since moving to the U.S.
Gorokhova took two memoir workshops
with McCourt, in 2004 and 2005, and credits
the wisdom he imparted as playing a part in
her success. Last January, her second book
was published in paperback as she was fin-
ishing a book tour for the hardcover.
Here she discusses memoir, craft, and the
value of workshops.
28 | The Writer October 2016
What did you take away from
McCourts workshops?
After the first workshop with McCourt, I
changed the voice in the rough draft I had
written. Earlier, I had submitted the draft to
an editor at a well-known publisher who had
said it was monochromatic, and in my
mind that meant boring. McCourt had a
great sense of humor, and I chose a some-
what lighter approach that actually made my
writing deeper. I added irony, and it assumed
some color. After the second workshop, I
polished it further.
How did you decide what to focus on?
McCourt advised us to figure out the hot spots
in your story. What are the moments or events
after which your life was no longer the same?
If you write enough of these and put them in
chronological order, this is your memoir.
You mention reading the Russian classics in
your first memoir. Were they your greatest lit-
erary influence?
It must be true because I was raised on them.
When I was growing up, schools in Soviet
Russia were very strict and followed a national
curriculum. We started reading [Alexander]
Pushkin in fifth grade, then [Ivan] Tur-
genev, followed by Crime and Punish-
ment by [Fyodor] Dostoevsky in ninth
grade. Following him, we read [Leo]
Tolstoys stories and novellas, and then
some of [Anton] Chekhovs works. In a
sense, we paid [by] having to take oblig-
atory scientific Communist classes and
those on the history of the Communist
Party, but on the other end, we got this
incredible education in literature and
linguistics and the Russian language.
We had to memorize some Russian
poetry and prose works, and when we
finished secondary school, we could
quote from them. Their rhythm was
sort of ingrained in us.
Did you consciously consider the
advice to show, dont tell when
you were writing?
I knew what that meant, but I was
working in the dark with the first book.
I learned a lot of things about craft after
I wrote the book. After it was pub-
lished, I went back and looked at what I
wrote and figured I was just lucky to
have been able to paint a picture. I
stuck to what I knew and described a
scene as I remembered it, not really
knowing thats what needed to be done.
Perhaps it worked because it was mem-
oir and I didnt have to make anything
up. Maybe it was intuitive.
How did you begin?
I just started writing; I had no outline.
I was writing about hot spots before
McCourt mentioned them. I began
with scenes that I came back to in my
mind over and over again. The first
was the death of my father, which I had
written about in a 1996 story published
in the Virginia Quarterly Review that
incorporated elements from my life. I
had to explore my feelings more deeply
for the memoir. I was 10 years old
when he died, and my reaction was
very visceral. Everything jelled after
that first workshop.
Did anyone provide background?
My mother provided stories from her
past that were great background. She
wrote the story of her life, which
included our relatives and was illumi-
nating for me. She was an anatomy pro- My husband read them several times. I
fessor and she provided more details
about helping the injured at the front
during World War II. My older sister, a
Russian actress from my mothers pre-
vious marriage, also filled me in on
events. I was grateful to both of them.
How did you feel about revealing diffi-
cult times with your daughter?
That was a very sensitive area. The
memoir wouldnt be complete without
that part, but its a conundrum in writ-
ing a memoir. I didnt know how to deal
with her teenage rebellion and her tat-
toos and how to write about it. It helped
that my husband, her father, is a thera-
pist. I showed him the scenes, and he
made me feel better. He said that part is
from my point of view and not meant to
hurt her. In a way, he gave me permis-
sion to release my discomfort. Youre
the only one who knows what might
hurt someone and what wont. On the
other hand, youre telling your story.
How did you approach the use of dialogue?
Dialogue grounds the reader in the
character. We need to know how the
character speaks, what is important
to them. Dialogue makes scenes come
alive and places you in the moment.
You often have to make it up, though.
I dont remember conversations from
years ago, but I know what the person
would say. I know how to make it
ring true.
Was writing a memoir cathartic?
It was cathartic and therapeutic and all
those words. For example, I never
knew my father, and I wanted to know
him. He was such a romantic image to
me, but of course, he wasnt really, he
was a Soviet party functionary and I
elevated him after he was gone. I never
addressed figuring out what I wanted
from him. I remember weeping more
than once when I wrote that chapter.
I think I dealt with his death, and Im
fine with it. It no longer haunts me.
How many people did you have critique
your drafts?
asked my friend in Russia, who is Nina
in the book, to read them, and my writ-
ing group read several chapters. I had
five [to] seven people read the first mem-
oir and three people read the second.
Do you enjoy writing or editing more?
I love polishing what Ive written. The
hardest thing for me is sitting in front
of a blank screen and writing the first
draft. Its easier for me to correct what
Ive written than to write from scratch.
I have to write a lot of drafts. I dont
even count them.
What advice would you give to someone
considering a memoir?
A famous quote from Chekhov that
sounds better in Russian goes something
like, If you are able not to write, dont
write. If you can live without it, dont do
it, because its painful and humiliating
and an awful lot of work, especially
memoir. I had to write because I could
not live without it. Thats what any
potential writer should ask him or her-
self. Can I live without writing this? And
if you can, then dont do it.
Pat Olsen is a frequent contributor to the New
York Times Sunday Business section. Her work
has also appeared in Hemispheres, Diversity
Woman, USA WEEKEND, and Family Business,
among others.
writermag.com The Writer | 29
 Five professional writers share their best tips for getting unstuck.
By Ryan G. Van Cleave
f youve ever banged face-first into a serious bout of writers block, youre
not alone! Every writer from Aristotle to Shakespeare to Mark Twain has
encountered the terror of the blank page from time to time. A few like
Twain have offered some advice.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started
is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and
then starting on the first one.Mark Twain
Todays top writers, too, know the agony of a blank screen, but like Twain and
RomanYa/Shutterstock

others, theyve developed strategies to keep the words coming. Here are some of
their best tips on getting over being stuck.

30 | The Writer October 2016

BRAD MELTZER
No. 1 New York Times best-selling
author of 10 thrillers, as well as non-
fiction, advice, and childrens books
Eisner award-winning author of
Justice League of America
Host of Brad Meltzers Lost History
and Brad Meltzers Decoded
What is writers block?
A made-up word so we feel important.
Like lawyers saying res ipsa loquitur.
Do best-selling authors encounter
creative blocks, too?
Every writer gets stuck. Thats just part
of the job. The phone only rings when
you get in the shower. So when Im
stuck, I go in the shower: I take a walk,
or a drive, or call a friend.
The best advice I ever got was from
a fellow writer who said: Its OK to
admit its hard. If it were easy, everyone
would do it. Getting stuck is part of
the job. Like hair in your shoes for bar-
bers. Just accept it and keep going,
keep going, keep going.
Do deadlines help?
Not for me. I do much better on my
own. Deadlines always slow me down.
But again, do what works for you.
Thats the only rule for writing.
What strategies do you have for
overcoming a creative block?
Talking it out [with someone] is
always helpful, even if you talk about
something totally off-topic. Other
than that, I do what every writer does:
I bang my head against the wall.
JULIANNA BAGGOTT
Author of 24 books, including a
post-apocalyptic dystopian
thriller, a historical novel based on
the life of her grandmother, a co-
authored book with Steve Almond,
four books of poetry, and numer-
ous award-winning novels for
younger readers
Associate professor at Florida State
Universitys College of Motion
Picture Arts
Holds the William H.P. Jenks Chair
in Contemporary American Letters
at the College of the Holy Cross
Youre quite prolific 18 published
books over the last 12 years alone!
How do you keep up that pace?
Its crucial that you realize that you
have a creative process. You arent
writing at the whim of the muse.
Demystify your own process. Get to
know that process, intimately, and
work with it instead of against it. In
other words, when you get a good
idea, lift your head. Where are you?
What time of day is it? What are you
doing? Is someone with you, collabo-
rating, or are you alone? Is this
moment and others like it when
good ideas come to you reproducible
in some aspect?
Probably.
Not that writing and the creative
process arent mystifying. They often
are. But the more you know your pro-
cess, the more you can create opportu-
nities for the more mystifying elements
to take root.
What was your own worst Im totally
blocked! moment? How did you
overcome it?
Well, I stopped writing literary novels
after my third novel was published. I
had a specific form of writers block,
and the next literary novel, The Sev-
enth Book of Wonders, took 18 years to
write. But I kept writing other kinds of
novels, across audiences and genres. I
freed myself in other ways.
Overall, when it comes to the
demands of life and writing, instead of
thinking of all things Im responsible
for as blipping radar on a massive
screen in my head, I compartmental-
ize and bring thousands of dots indi-
vidual emails, marketing meetings,
each student I teach, each editor I
work with, each of my four kids, all of
my current projects [into] a kind of
box. Im inside the box and it has pull-
down screens.
One screen is my position at Holy
Cross, where I teach undergraduates;
one is my position at Florida State
University, where I teach graduate-
level screenwriters; one holds all cur-
rent projects; and one is personal
(including college tuition, my parents
upcoming visit, dentists...). In my
mind, the screens are retractable. This
is key. I pull each one down and exam-
ine the blipping dots on each screen.
Then I push that screen up in my
mind and it disappears.
Once Ive attended all those
screens and retracted them my
mind is my own. I cordon off time
then. Its mine. Elbows out, I protect
it. I write.
What do you tell students who claim to
be the victim of writers block?
Read what first made you fall in love
with writing.
Play. Find ways to lower the bar and
just mess with writing, instead of
thinking of yourself as a writer.
Use a pen name for the initial phase
of writing even if later you choose to
use your own name. What would you
write if you didnt think it had to
define you? (There is no real way to
fully define yourself.)
Theres no such thing as perfect.
Writing is a collaboration with a
stranger the reader. Perfect is a myth,
a paralyzing one.
Learn to use criticism, rejection,
jealousy as rocket fuel that propels you
to the desk. (Easier said than done.)
Deadlines are the benefit of the
classroom. Writers block is a luxury
you cant afford. Once on their own, its
best for them to create accountability
with other writers, arbitrary deadlines
to keep each other on task.
STEVE ALMOND
Author of 12 books, including
Against Football, Candyfreak, and
My Life in Heavy Metal
Published 150+ stories in maga-
zines such as Tin House, Zoetrope,
and Playboy
writermag.com The Writer | 31
What actually happens when writers
block strikes?
I think writers block is really a writer
succumbing to self-doubt, getting
hung up [on] a fatalistic view. I visit
this place a lot.
Whats the solution?
There is no solution. Or rather, every
writer finds her own way out. My own
solution has been to set the bar as low
as possible to simply get yourself to
the keyboard and try to get some
words down. Thats all you can do.
Show up and try. Devote as much
attention as you can to the work, and
try to ignore the noise in your head
about whether youre good enough
[or] will ever get published that
whole narcissistic loop. Its attention
directed at the wrong drama.
Any other tips?
Id also counsel patience and self-for-
giveness to the extent possible. When
I put too much pressure on myself, the
results are almost always forced and
self-conscious. When I can get to a
point where Im experiencing more of
a sense of play and improvisation,
thats a good sign.
But this is one of the occupational
hazards of creative work. Sometimes
the muse is there. Sometimes it isnt.
All you can do is get yourself into the
makers chair and sustain your atten-
tion. The rest is out of your control.
LINDA WASMER ANDREWS
Author/coauthor of 14 books,
including six books on adolescent
mental health
Published 3,000+ articles in the
fields of health, medicine, mental
health, psychology, and the mind/
body connection
More than 3,000 published articles?
Wow. Whats your secret?
I appreciate the days when Im feeling
in the zone, but I dont wait for them. I
also write on the days when it feels like
Im running through waist-deep mud.
32 | The Writer October 2016
Its much easier to revise an uninspired
manuscript than to start from scratch
with a blank screen.
Whats your definition of writers block?
Its the reverse of what Ive just
described. The writer waits until the
stars align and the brains neurons fire
in perfect synchrony. That isnt going
to happen every day, so writing
becomes an activity that only hap-
pens sometimes, and then occasion-
ally, and then rarely, and then
perhaps never.
Got any useful strategies
for getting unstuck?
Heres what I tell myself: My best effort
on any given day is good enough to
feel satisfied with myself, even if the
writing I produce is not always good
enough to turn in to an editor.
Heres the reality: Uncritical self-
acceptance ishard, and I dont always
achieve it. But when I do, Im less likely
to feel creatively constipated.
If I find my brain seizing up at the
keyboard, one thing that gets me
unstuck quickly is taking a hot
shower. Im not certain exactly why
this gets the ideas flowing, although I
suspect that surrendering to relax-
ation (rather than wrestling with my
brain) is part of the answer. Also, I
think theres an element of contrari-
ness at work; just knowing that
Icantconveniently jot down an idea
makes me want to do it!
What was your worst block?
What helped you past it?
Ive been writing professionally for 34
years, and I dont think theres ever
been a time when I thought of myself
as having writers block. If I can just sit
down and writesomething, I see myself
as a productive writer, and that
becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
LOREE LOUGH
Author of 100+ fiction and nonfic-
tion books for kids and adults
Published more than 2,500 articles
In your mind, whats happening when
the words stop flowing?
A block happens when a writer isnt
quite sure where to go next. Its as if
theyre standing at a crossroads. Go
right? Left? Turn back? My advice isnt
new: Freewriting. Get off the com-
puter. Sit in a different room, tablet
and pencil/pen in hand. Write down
what you see (hear, smell, etc.) with-
out paying attention to mechanics,
and how those senses make
youfeel.Still stuck? Move to another
room and think of something thats
happening in the news, then
writeyour heartfelt opinion on that
topic. So now that youre in writing
mode, think about The Work. Take
your notes to another location and try
to incorporate as many of them into it
as possible. (Few, if any, will end up in
the project, but at least your brain is
now honed in on the article/story/
book.) Most of my students have
reported theyre back on track after
the first exercise.
How do you stay so prolific?
Spending the advance check is always a
super motivator!
Whats the No. 1 thing aspiring writers
should know or understand about
becoming prolific?
Set a goal and a timeline: By year-end
(five years from now; before I die), I
will have ____articles, books, or short
stories in print. Tell your mother-in-
law, sibling, anyone who has pooh-
poohed your writing dreams that
youve set this goal. Memorize that
Uh-huh, sure, riiiiight . . . expression.
Next, do some homework: Whos buy-
ing the type of stuff you write? Polish
your proposal packages and send them
out toallof those editors. And while
youre waiting to hear back from them,
send out somemorestuff. Because if
thereisa secret to getting published
its tenacity!
Ryan G. Van Cleave is the author of 20 books
and he runs the Ringling College of Art + Design
creative writing program.
 CHERYL HOLT
New York Times and Amazon
bestselling author of 40 novels
and counting

BOOKBABY AUTHOR SINCE 2011

BookBaby helps me reach the

Amazon bestseller lists!
There is so much to love about BookBaby but here are my three favorite things.
They make it so easy! I dont have to know anything about conversion or formatting.
I just send them my manuscript and they do the rest.
No hidden fees! This is huge! I just pay them one time. All my costs are up front
and they dont take a single cent of commission.
They have absolutely the best customer service! Their employees are all here in the US
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FREELANCE SUCCESS
BY PETE CROATTO
Writers wanted
The Internet is full of classifieds calling for writers.
How many are too good to be true?
T
weaking pitches to editors
grows exhausting, so some-
one offering work feels like a
gift. That is the appeal of
online ads calling for writers. So is
their availability: A freelancer can fill
an entire days work just applying for
gigs on sites of varying reputes.
Think of online ads as walking
through a city at 2 a.m. Some neigh-
borhoods radiate youthful fun; others
have a winding-down, sip a scotch-
and-soda at the bar vibe. Too many
teem with sketchy characters that have
you patting your pockets for your
phone and wallet.
Consider this column a guide for
navigating this sprawling pseudo
metropolis. My qualifications? For
nearly 10 years, I have consulted online
ads. Ive landed fun, financially
rewarding jobs and one that con-
cluded with me going David Mamet on
a late-paying, shiftless client.
How do you minimize aggravation?
Look for these warning signs.
1. Sky-high standards from the employer
In February 2015, I came across an ad
looking for two- to three-thousand
word posts that must be of extremely
high quality, full of research and lots of
examples. Every claim you make has to
be backed up by research, test[s], and
evidence. New Yorker style thoughtful
posts welcome too.
The posts were, I believe, $75 a
pop for a chiropractic practice in
Austin, Texas.
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing
34 | The Writer October 2016
the job post that nearly drove me to
the priesthood.
2. Lousy pay
Or, increasingly, no pay. Avoid any list-
ing that uses variations of these phrases,
which make professional writing sound
like youre clothing the poor:
Its a great opportunity to build
your portfolio.
Were just getting started, but were
hoping to pay our contributors soon.
The exposure youll get writing for
us is invaluable.
Youll get experience writing for
editors who care about your work.
Also, run from any ad that offers
services in lieu of payment. I came
across one copywriting ad recently for
a salon that offered manicures as
compensation. Thats great for an
octopus and nobody else.
Good pay is open to interpreta-
tion. Vince Guerrieri, a veteran Ohio
newspaper reporter who has contrib-
uted to POLITICO and Ohio maga-
zines, wrote his first book (Ohio Sports
Trivia) thanks to an online ad he
answered. The pay was below his stan-
dards, he said, but it opened doors
and inspired him.
It was a calculated risk, he says.
Once I wrote that and I went, Wow,
its not that hard. Maybe I should do
another one, and I did.
When it comes to an acceptable rate,
Guerrieri has a rule. You dont want to
devalue or undervalue the work you
do, he says. So you try to find the rate
that is enough to make it worth your
while. You can go a little lower, he adds,
but its got to be something you enjoy.
3. Sketchy details
You get a lot where its company con-
fidential: they want to know a lot
about you, but they dont want you to
know anything about them, says Ste-
phen Silver, a Philadelphia-based
entertainment and technology writer
who regularly looks for work online.
Ideally, the ad will contain a contact
person who has a corporate email
address as well as a clear description of
the job that doesnt read like it was
scribbled during the morning com-
mute. Even better, the ad describes
what the company does and has a
link to a functioning website.
Always visit the website. You get a
sense of whether this is a professional
operation or not, is it trustworthy or
not, Silver advises.
4. A daunting application process
Please send a cover letter explaining
why youre the right fit, an updated
resume, six clips, five references, an
original sample article, your first
report card, a unicorns horn, a VHS
copy of The Day the Clown Cried, your
spouses measurements, a completed
crossword puzzle from this weeks New
York Times Magazine, and a self-
addressed stamped envelope in a hot
air balloon to
YoPixArt/Shutterstock
When you freelance, time is money.
If applying for a job gobbles the time
you spend writing or pursuing leads,
look elsewhere.
5. Unacceptable compromises
When New Jersey-based freelancer
Melissa Kvidahl first started, she
sought work through online ads. That
ended quickly.
Too many listings, she said, sought
a part-time employee on site or a full-
time employee to work remotely.
Those qualifications conflicted with
two reasons why Kvidahl wanted to
freelance: having a flexible schedule
and working from home.
Plus, the listings were frequently
from employment agencies. I can
find work myself, she says. Why
should I go through this agency? A
lot of the appeal is getting through
the red tape, so why would I intro-
duce red tape?
6. Internal desperation
Moving on isnt just OK; its advisable.
If you dont adhere to your standards,
you will adhere to someone elses.
Remember that job I mentioned
earlier, the one that had me parting
ways with my client via screaming
match? I took that gig because I had
been without a substantial source of
income for nine months. It was so nice
to hear anyone say yes that every red
flag I saw turned green.
And I raced right into a wall for
almost a year. I ignored bounced
checks. I accepted more work for less
pay. Im afraid my idiocy ran deep.
7. Only looking at online ads
At the time, I saw online ads as the way
to get the most work quickly. They
should have been part of an attack that
included crafting individualized
pitches, building contacts through
social media, and writing to former
editors and colleagues. Thats the
approach I currently use. Im person-
ally connected to someone instead of
participating in a daily, employment-
influenced Hunger Games.
Look at Kvidahl: emailing contacts
from her trade magazine days launched
her freelance career. Plus, she didnt
have to scream to get heard.
Pete Croattos work has appeared in the New
York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The Christian
Science Monitor. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

fiction nonfiction poetry reviews opinions art

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CLASS ACTION
BY JEFF TAMARKIN
Another world
This six-week sci-fi and fantasy workshop doesnt just teach craft.
It provides a community that lasts long after the workshop is over.
F
or many writers, particularly those who work
within tightly defined genres, the workshop serves
as an invaluable exercise, an opportunity to focus
and learn by interacting directly with peers and
successful professionals.
The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Work-
shop, an annual, six-week event held each summer at the
University of California, San Diego, is generally recognized
as the go-to forum within its field. About 200 applicants
typically vie for one of its 18 coveted spots, eager to dive
into its intensive environment and produce work to be
meticulously scrutinized by others. Many Clarion alumni
more than 30 percent, according to the organizers have
been published after participating.
At Clarion, whose fees run approximately $5,000 as of
the 2016 workshop (including housing and meals), students
36 | The Writer October 2016
have access not only to well-known writers/instructors but
also to many of the universitys resources. For the dedicated
sci-fi/fantasy writer, the experience at Clarion, which oper-
ates under the umbrella of the universitys Arthur C. Clarke
Center for Human Imagination, offers total immersion into
the nuts and bolts of the craft.
We bring in fantastic writers, many of whom are Clarion
grads themselves, says Shelley Streeby, Clarions faculty
director since 2010. They understand the kind of genre-
specific things that people need to learn and have been
through the experience themselves, which makes a big dif-
ference. Last year, for instance, we had Nora (N.K.) Jemisin,
the writer whos been lighting up the best-seller charts in
fantasy; she did a great session on world-building, which
you have to be able to do [in sci-fi and fantasy].
For the 2016 session, which concluded in late July,
Clarion hosted numerous writers Wilson in 1968, at Clarion State Col- spend half an hour lecturing on what-
renowned within the SF/fantasy com- lege (now Clarion University) in ever their special expertise is. Then we
munity, among them Kelly Link, Ted Pennsylvania. From 1972 to 2006, the would spend the bulk of the time
Chiang, Andy Duncan, and Victor workshop was based at Michigan State doing a round-robin critique of the
LaValle, each of whom conducted a University, before settling into its cur- stories for that day. Critiquing is an art
week-long workshop during the ses- rent home. In the years since Clarions that we teach; its important both for
sions first four weeks. For the last two inception, the sci-fi and fantasy genres the person youre critiquing and you as
weeks, a two-writer anchor team, Delia have themselves taken on a pro- a writer. Its not something that is natu-
Sherman and Ellen Kushner, shared nounced respectability that was not ral; you have to learn how to give peo-
the helm, as is Clarions custom. always there in the beginning. Were ple good feedback.
Clarions students, says Streeby, are in a much better moment right now, But, Streeby assures, its not all
encouraged to write up to a [short] says Streeby, herself a published about the work. Were lucky to have
story a week, four to six in all, so they author and self-described scholar of access to some of the most beautiful
come out of this with a bunch of sto- popular culture, who has been a beaches in the world, so often in the
ries that have been workshopped by member of UCSDs department of lit- late afternoon or early evening, people
some of the greatest science fiction erature for two decades. The genre will go hiking. Cory Doctorow, one of
writers and their peers. We do a was devalued throughout its history, the writers, had a ritual where every-
round-robin where we workshop people have thought of it as a chil- body had to go for a sunset walk and
everyones stories. Carmen Maria drens genre or something like that, had to get up and do yoga in the
Machado, one of our writers a few especially because they were thinking morning. Weekends are a time for
years ago, was doing a story during about 50s golden-age science fiction people to really dip into the writing
Ted Chiangs week; we gave her good or space operas. Its gained a lot more but sometimes people will take some
feedback, and she sent it off and got it literary legitimacy. time to get away from it all for a few
published. Another former student, In addition to enjoying the close hours. Clarion is truly one of the most
Sam Miller, won a Shirley Jackson attention of successful writers, the wonderful things Ive ever been
Award within a couple of years of com- Clarion experience also highlights the involved with.
ing out of Clarion. students dedication to helping one
Each Clarion participant desires to another. Says Streeby, On a typical Jeff Tarmarkin is a freelance writer/editor. He
attend the program for his or her own day, from 9 to 1, we are in the work- lives in Hoboken, NJ, with his wife, novelist
reasons, with different goals in mind. shop, where the instructor might Caroline Leavitt.
But, says Streeby, they often come
away from the program with more
than they expected. It hones your
skills; it makes you a better writer, she
says. It also helps you connect to peo-
ple in the science fiction and fantasy
world who can help people see how
good you are. That is an important
thing, learning those aspects. We teach
about the business aspects of the pro-
fession, too: getting an agent and
things like that. The networks of
friendship are huge, too. These people
stay connected for life. We set up pri-
vate Facebook groups, and then we see
them continue, interacting almost on
a daily basis. They meet once a year
and have a self-organized retreat
where theyll read each others work.
Clarion was established by science
fiction author and editor Robin Scott
writermag.com The Writer | 37
CONFERENCE INSIDER
BY MELISSA HART

Thrill seeker
From FBI field trips to an all-day PitchFest,
ThrillerFest welcomes page-turners of all genres.

M
ost writing conferences
dont give you the
opportunity to get up
close and personal with
FBI agents and forensic dentists. But
Kimberly Howe, director of Thriller-
Fest, believes the insight offered by
these professionals during New York
Citys six-day event is invaluable.
Theyre excited to promote what
they do and make sure writers get it
correct, she says. They offer writers
really interesting insights into their
day-to-day work.
ThrillerFest began 12 years ago when
a group of best-selling authors formed
International Thriller Writers, now with
over 3,000 members, and launched a
series of workshops, pitch sessions, and
networking opportunities in and around like How to Keep Your Plot and Char- After a Thursday night cocktail
midtown Manhattan. When we say acters in Turmoil and Psychopathol- party, weekend participants attend
thriller, Howe clarifies, we mean page- ogy as Character Development. panels and author interviews set up
turner. We have a lot of authors working A new career track that day focuses talk-show style on stage for a casual,
in YA fiction, paranormal, medical and on traditional and independent publish- intimate glimpse into best-selling writ-
legal, romantic, suspense theres such a ing, including information on market- ers lives. A Saturday night awards ban-
wide range in genre fiction. ing, social media, and other options for quet wraps up the conference.
expanding visibility and building a The support you feel, the advice
What youll learn career as an author. Its exciting to give you get in a challenging industry with
Howe and other organizers have the six- our writers the opportunity to learn lots of details and tough rejections is
day conference down to a science. On about this industry, which is dynamic incredible, says Howe, whose own
Monday, participants can opt to take a and always changing, says Howe. There debut novel, The Freedom Broker, hits
day-long field trip to talk with the FBI. are so many options for publishing. bookshelves in February 2017.
Agents talk about their areas of exper- Thursday afternoon, PitchFest
tise, covering topics such as jewelry theft, takes over the Grand Hyatts enor- Featured presenters
crime, drugs, and counterterrorism. mous ballroom. Aspiring novelists Lee Child will serve as ThrillerFests
Tuesday is the Master CraftFest, dur- may pitch their ideas to more than 50 2017 Thrillermaster, a lifetime
ing which bestselling authors spend an agents, editors, publishers, and pro- achievement distinction previously
intensive day with groups of 10 writers, ducers over three and a half hours of awarded to Goosebumps series author
working on the craft of writing and short meetings in a speed dating for- R.L. Stine, adventure novelist Clive
offering feedback on manuscript pages. mat. Weve had amazing success sto- Cussler, and Heather Graham author
Wednesdays CraftFest offers four tracks, ries, Howe says. Major deals and of more than 150 novels published in
including writing workshops with titles movies. Its so exciting. 25 languages. The line-up of authors
38 | The Writer October 2016
and speakers for 2017 includes Diana
Gabaldon, David Morrell, C.J. Box,
Sandra Brown, and Lara Adrian,
among numerous others.
Howe is also working to include
more field trips; shes negotiating with
CIA staff and the diplomatic section of
the state department. Previous guest
speakers include a U.S. Marshal, a
member of the Secret Service, a panel
of Navy Seals, and canine experts with
their police dogs.
We want to help our writers with
their storytelling skills, Howe says. We
also want to give them information that
will help with accuracy in fiction.
Advice for first-timers
Debut authors at the conference work
closely with a mentor who teaches
them about the process of publication
and how to market their book. These
literary debutantes are featured at a
breakfast in which they can opt to
spend a minute discussing their book.
Its held in a beautiful ballroom, Howe
says, and gives debut authors a chance
to be showcased in a really nice way.
Not quite ready to publish tradi-
tionally or independently? Sign up for
a day pass or an entire week and be
CONFERENCE:
THRILLERFEST
Dates:
July 2017
Cost:
$236-$1199
Location:
New York City, NY
Contact:
Conference Director
Kimberly Howe
KimberlyHowe@thrillerwriters.org
Website:
thrillerfest.com
prepared to learn a lot . . . and meet
new friends, as well.
Its an incredibly professional,
incredibly warm and friendly confer-
ence, Howe says. We go out of our
way to make sure anyone standing
alone gets included.
6)
:&
A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community
Contributing editor Melissa Hart is the 
Keynoters : HEATHER GRAHAM,
author of the middle-grade novel Avenging the
JOHN PERKINS & WILLIAM BERNHARDT
Owl, and the memoirs Wild Within and Gringa: A
100+ presentersauthors, editors,
Contradictory Girlhood. melissahart.com. publishers, book marketing experts & literary
agents from New York, L.A. & S.F. Bay Area
February 16-19, 2017
at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel
Substantial early registration discounts & special room rates.
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Event and contest details; online registration;
and SFWC Newsletter subscription:

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San Francisco Writers Conference is a
501(c)3 nonprofit organization
writermag.com The Writer | 39
LITERARY SPOTLIGHT
BY MELISSA HART
Pulp fiction
Works of all genres can find a home in this eclectic magazine.
F
rustrated by genre boundaries, writers Mel Anasta-
siou, Jennifer Landels and Susan Pieters were drink-
ing Innis & Gunn on a sundeck near Vancouver,
B.C., when they decided to launch Pulp Literature.
The three-year old quarterly magazine features science fic-
tion, mystery, fantasy, history, suspense, and thriller defined
by powerful themes and complex character development.
We realized we knew a lot of writers who had pieces sit-
ting in shoeboxes under their bed that didnt fit what theyd
already published. We also knew new writers looking to
break out, Landels says. We put together a magazine that
40 | The Writer October 2016
INSIDE LITERARY MAGAZINES
introduces new writers to the world and lets established
writers break out of their boxes.
Tone, editorial content
Editors explain on the magazines website that some writers
assume theyre looking only for stories informed by guns
and blood. Rather, the pulp in the title refers to cheap pulp
paper used in the dime-novels of last century, and Pulp Lit-
erature include a balance of all genres.
We wanted to embrace the fact that commercial fiction
can have literary qualities, that genre fiction can include
good storytelling, and literary fiction can have a plot, says
Landels. We love good storytelling and beautiful writing,
and theyre not mutually exclusive.
Authors have responded with gratitude for the opportu-
nity to break out of their traditional genres. Carol Berg is a
well-known fantasy author; she wrote a detective story set
in one of her fantasy worlds for the spring 2016 issue of
Pulp Literature.
Shes got this broken character who has a type of magic
he cant use publicly, and hes very much a noir detective
in a fantasy world, Landels says of Bergs story, Unca-
nonical Murder. Her writing is relatable to people who
dont read fantasy.
Contributors
Previous issues of Pulp Literature include pieces by Amy
Fant, Michael Ryan, and Marta Salek. This years summer
issue includes a story by the Canadian literary novelist Mat-
thew Hooton. Titled How to Write a Successful Obituary
for a Superhero, its about a journalist in a normal, everyday
world who discovers a dead superhero in an alley. Hooton
begins his story with Lars confronting a dying body
propped against a Dumpster:
One eye opens, the flash of white planetary and ecliptic
amidst black and red. The other stays shut, a wet mess
still mostly hidden by the mask.
Its written so beautifully, with short sparse sen-
tences, says Landels. And, like the editors favorite sto-
ries, its surprising. You still dont know by the end of the

piece whether the superhero is real
or a man dressed up in a costume,
she explains.
The autumn 2016 issue features
Bob Thurbers suspense story about
fathers and sons, titled If Youd Like
to Make a Call, Please Hang Up. He
tends to write flash fiction very suc-
cinct, very pointed, Landels says.
His writing is economical
and terse. It just gets you.
Advice for potential
contributors
While Pulp Literature edi-
tors do occasionally publish
novellas, they prefer shorter
stories. We want a story
thats somehow different,
Landels says. Maybe it
starts off looking like a
familiar mystery or fantasy,
but it has some sort of
twist. We want something
thats going to make us gasp
or laugh.
She notes that the maga-
zines three contests a year
one for poetry, one for
flash fiction, and one for
short fiction offer authors
additional opportunities for
editorial attention. We
receive fewer entries in a
contest than in general sub-
missions, so youre more likely to get
noticed, she says. Theyre judged
blind, so it doesnt matter if you have
previous credit.
They offer another opportunity for
personal attention, as well. The Muse
Retreat takes place over three days
each January (in 2017, January 6-8) on
Bowen Island near Vancouver, B.C.
low up-front prices
paperback & hardcover
20-day production
100 minimum order
Request a FREE Kit
800-650-7888, ext. W10
Call
Visit www.morrispublishing.com
Genre-busting short stories,
novellas, serials, and graphic
novels in a pulp anthology
magazine.
PRINT, QUARTERLY.
Genres: Short stories, novellas, poetry,
comics, illustrations.
Reading period: Varies see website.
Length: Up to 75 pages.
Submission format: E-mail.
Payment: Varies
Contests: The Hummingbird Flash Fiction
Award, The Raven Fiction Award, and The
Magpie Award for Poetry.
Contact: Editors Mel Anastasiou,
Jennifer Landels and Susan Pieters.
submissions@pulpliterature.com.
pulpliterature.com
During the weekend, writers have the
option to take workshops or wander
the island or simply write.
Its a lovely three days in a beautiful
bed and breakfast, says Landels. Its
luxurious. We get fed wonderfully and
focus on our writing.
Contributing editor Melissa Hart is the
author of Avenging the Owl and Wild Within:
How Rescuing Owls Inspired a Family. Web:
melissahart.com.
writermag.com The Writer | 41
 MARKETS
COMPILED BY NICKI PORTER
WriterMag.com
Subscribers to The Writer have online
access to information on 3,000+ publish-
ers, publications, conferences, contests
and agents. Go to WriterMag.com and click
on Writing Resources.
Information in this section is provided to
The Writer by the individual markets and
events; for more information, contact those
entities directly.
ANIMALS/PETS
ANIMAL WELLNESS Natural pet magazine
aimed at helping pet owners make wise health-
care choices for animal companions. Accepting
articles of 500-1,500 words. Particularly interested
in submissions for Animal Passages, Warm &
Fuzzy and Tail End columns. Submit via email or
mail a disc with the file. Contact: Animal Well-
ness, 160 Charlotte St., Unit 202, Peterborough,
ON, Canada K9J 2T8. 705-741-0817.
ann@redstonemediagroup.com
animalwellnessmagazine.com
THE BARK Publication for dog lovers covering
canine nutrition, culture, obedience and gear.
Accepts unsolicited submissions and previously
published material. Accepts short pieces (fewer
than 600 words) on general tips, how-to and
other topics, as well as some fiction, personal
essays and poetry. Contact: Claudia Kawczynska,
Editor, The Bark, 2810 Eighth St., Berkeley, CA
94710. submissions@thebark.com thebark.com
BIRDWATCHING Bimonthly magazine for
fans of wild birds and birdwatching. Topics
include untold stories about birds and bird
behavior; first-person accounts; birds in the news;
birding hotspots; tips for attracting, feeding and
identifying birds; photo essays; first-person nar-
ratives about finding rare birds; history of orni-
thology and birdwatching. Send queries by email
or regular mail. Contact: Editorial Dept., Bird-
Watching Magazine, 25 Braintree Hill Office
Park, Suite 404, Braintree, MA 02184.
mail@birdwatchingdaily.com
birdwatchingdaily.com
CAT FANCY Features articles for cat lovers on
cat culture, breed profiles, feline health, nutrition,
training and more. Submit queries by regular
mail or email. Queries accepted between Jan. 1
and May 1. Contact: Cat Fancy, Attn: Query Edi-
tor, P.O. Box 6050, Mission Viejo, CA 92690.
query@catfancy.com catchannel.com
THE HORSE Monthly magazine about equine
42 | The Writer October 2016
Niche mags
Many writers think only of the big-name magazines as outlets to
publish work. But smaller magazines that specialize in a niche market
are often looking for solid writers to contribute to each issue. Here is
how you can narrow your focus.
1. Pin down your interests and find a magazine with those themes. If
you are already well-versed in a subject, your expertise will show.
2. Read the magazine for at least a few issues to see what content is
featured.
3. Often, niche magazines have a narrow focus, so its possible that
topics can be repeated. Pay attention and think of an idea thats
original and timely.
4. Pitch to an already-existing section of the magazine or, if you see a
hole, suggest a new topic. Your idea could lead to an ongoing gig.
5. Follow up with the editor a few weeks after pitching if you havent
heard back. The staff on smaller publications can often be small,
though the workload is the same as the big guns. Be patient and
polite.
The magazines in this section are a small sampling of what the
industry has to offer. Find more market listings at writermag.com.
health care, focusing on educational topics and tics, environment, society and culture. Also
news for professional horse owners. No unsolic- interested in fiction. Written queries required for
ited material accepted. Submit resume and writ- nonfiction articles. Will accept unsolicited fiction
ing samples before sending a manuscript. manuscripts. Submit by regular mail only.
Contact: Stephanie Church, Editor-in-Chief, P.O. Monthly. Contact: Harpers Magazine, 666
Box 919003, Lexington, KY 40591. Broadway, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10012.
schurch@thehorse.com thehorse.com 212-420-5720. harpers.org
MOTHER JONES Independent journalism
CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS
publication focusing on national topics including
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
social and political issues, environmental issues,
International online and weekly magazine cover-
corporate wrongdoing, human rights and politi-
ing a wide range of issues and events. Features
cal influence. Accepts queries by email or regular
articles on domestic and foreign affairs, econom-
mail. Contact: Mother Jones, 222 Sutter St., Suite
ics, education, environment, law, media, politics,
600, San Francisco, CA 94108. 415-321-1700.
lifestyle trends, womens rights, family issues,
query@motherjones.com motherjones.com
community, personal finance, careers, education,
books, art, travel, cultural commentary, occa- THE NATION Publishes articles and comments
sional poetry and more. Seeks news for print, on politics and culture from a liberal perspective.
email and online editions. See website for guide- National affairs of interest include civil liberties,
lines. Contact: The Christian Science Monitor, civil rights, labor, economics, environmental,
210 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA 02115. political and feminist issues. International affairs
617-450-2300. See website for editor email topics include political, economic and social
addresses. csmonitor.com developments. Submit query via form on website.
Accepts some poetry; see separate poetry guide-
HARPERS MAGAZINE Oldest general inter-
lines. Weekly. Contact: The Nation. 33 Irving
est monthly in America features articles on poli-
Place, New York, NY 10003. 212-209-5400. Email

from website. thenation.com
REASON Free Minds and Free Markets. Pub-
lishes articles on politics, economics, culture and
science from a broad-minded libertarian perspec-
tive. Email and regular mail queries only; include
published clips. No manuscripts. Monthly.
Contact: Brian Doherty, Reason, 5737 Mesmer
Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90230. 310-391-2245.
bdoherty@reason.com reason.com
WASHINGTON MONTHLY Publishes topi-
cal, informative articles about politics, govern-
ment, culture and the media in the U.S. Seeks
features, short news items, humorous sidebars
and book reviews for political and cultural titles.
Submit queries by email or regular mail.
Bimonthly. Contact: Washington Monthly, 1200
18th St. NW, Ste. 330, Washington, D.C. 20036.
202-955-9010. washingtonmonthly.com
YES! Magazine focuses on building a more sus-
tainable, compassionate world. Each issue has a
theme, but also covers topics such as health, cli-
mate change, globalization, labor, social and
racial justice. Submit queries and proposals with
published clips or a writing sample. Prefers elec-
tronic queries. Contact: YES! Magazine, 284
Madrona Way NE, Suite 116, Bainbridge Island,
WA 98110. submissions@yesmagazine.org
yesmagazine.org
FAMILY
ADOPTIVE FAMILIES A digital resource for
families before, during and after adoption featur-
ing topics such as preparing for adoption, health
issues, school and education, birth families, talk-
ing about adoption, parenting tips and guide-
lines. Several departments also accept freelance
work. Submit queries by email (preferred) or reg-
ular mail. Quarterly. Contact: Submissions,
Adoptive Families, 108 West 39th Street, Suite
805, New York, NY 10018.
submissions@adoptivefamilies.com
adoptivefamilies.com
ATLANTA PARENT A resource for parents
with children up to age 18 in the Atlanta area.
Covers topics such as child care, education, fam-
ily activities, health. Send submissions by email as
a Word attachment (preferred) or postal mail.
Monthly. Contact: Atlanta Parent Magazine,
Attn: Editor, 2346 Perimeter Park Drive, Atlanta,
GA 30341. 770-454-7599.
editor@atlantaparent.com atlantaparent.com
CHESAPEAKE FAMILY Free parenting pub-
lication serving portions of Queen Annes coun-
ties of Maryland. Especially interested in local
travel stories. Submit queries by email. Monthly.
Contact: Chesapeake Family, 121 Cathedral St.,
Third Floor, Annapolis, MD 21401.
Get up-to-date information on
markets at writermag.com
410-263-1641. editor@chesapeakefamily.com wnyfamilymagazine.com
chesapeakefamily.com
WORKING MOTHER Features articles for
CHICAGO PARENT Publishes essays and fea- working women about balancing their profes-
tures about childcare, education, balancing work sional life, family life and personal life. Submit
and family for parents in the Chicago metro area. queries by email with links or clips of previously
Interested in local writers. Submit queries by published work, if possible. Monthly. Contact:
email only. Monthly. Contact: Chicago Parent. Working Mother Magazine, 2 Park Ave., 10th
Editor: Tamara L. OShaughnessy. floor, New York, NY 10016. See website for spe-
tamara@chicagoparent.com chicagoparent.com cific contacts for editorial content. 212-779-5000.
workingmother.com
THE GREEN PARENT A green lifestyle and
natural parenting magazine from the UK. Topics
FOOD AND DRINK
include pregnancy and conscious birth, breast-
EATING WELL Features articles and columns
feeding, family life, alternative education, natural
about cooking and nutrition science, including
health and beauty, food and drink, eco-friendly
the origins of foods and social issues related to
house and garden, green travel and ethical fash-
food. Prefers email queries. Bimonthly. Recom-
ion. Submit manuscript by email only. Bimonthly.
mends starting with front-of-book queries.
Contact: The Green Parent, P.O. Box 104, East
Contact: EatingWell Media Group, 120 Graham
Hoathly, Lewes, BN7 9AX.
Way, Suite 100, Shelburne, VT 05482.
features@thegreenparent.co.uk
802-985-4500. Check website for specific editors
thegreenparent.co.uk
email addresses. eatingwell.com
PITTSBURGH PARENT Features informa-
EDIBLE GREEN MOUNTAINS Publishes
tion for parents in the Pittsburgh metro area
articles and recipes of interest to communities in
about parenting, family events and resources for
Vermont. Submit queries for features and depart-
families. Send queries and submissions by email
ments by email. Quarterly. Contact: Edible
only. Contact: Honey Hill Publishing, Inc., Pitts-
Green Mountains. P.O. Box 2607, Manchester
burgh Parent Magazine, 1126 Pittsburgh Road
Center, VT 05255. 802-768-8356.
(RT 8), P.O. Box 674, Valencia, PA 16059.
info@ediblegreenmountains.com
724-898-1898. editor@pittsburghparent.com
ediblegreenmountains.com
pittsburghparent.com
EDIBLE SEATTLE Publishes a wide variety of
PREGNANCY & NEWBORN Targets par-
articles and recipes of interest to the Seattle and
ents who are pregnant or who have children
Washington state community. Submit queries for
under the age of 1. Topics include prenatal health,
features and departments by email. Bimonthly.
prenatal nutrition, emotional wellbeing, labor
Contact: Edible Seattle. Editor and Publisher
and delivery, infant care and parenting. Prefers
Alex Corcoran alex@edibleseattle.com
queries by email; include clips of previously pub-
edibleseattle.com
lished articles. Contact: Pregnancy & Newborn,
200 Galleria Pkwy SE, Suite 920, Atlanta, GA EDIBLE SOUTH SHORE & SOUTH COAST
30339. 770-226-8472. editor@pnmag.com Publishes articles and recipes about food, beer
pnmag.com and wine in the communities of the South Shore
and South Coast areas of Massachusetts. Submit
RAISING ARIZONA KIDS Publishes articles
queries for features and departments by email.
for parents raising children in Arizona. Works
Quarterly. Contact: Edible South Shore, 15 Ever-
with Arizona-based writers only. Topics must
green St., Kingston, MA 02364. 781-582-1726.
have a local angle. Submit queries and submis-
laurie@ediblesouthshore.com
sions by regular mail or email. Contact: Raising
ediblesouthshore.com
Arizona Kids, 5229 N. Seventh Ave. #102, Phoe-
nix, AZ 85013. editorial@raisingarizonakids.com GASTRONOMICA Features articles from any
raisingarizonakids.com field pertaining to the history, production, uses
and depictions of food. Accepts research articles,
WESTERN NEW YORK FAMILY
prose, poetry, original artwork, photographs and
MAGAZINE Features articles for parents in
cartoons. Also publishes book reviews.
Western New York state; offers information on
Contact: Gastronomica. gastroed@ucsc.edu
area resources, family activities for the Buffalo
gastronomica.org
metro area. See website for issue themes. Submit
articles by email only. Monthly. Contact: Western GLUTEN-FREE LIVING Dedicated to pro-
New York Family Magazine, 3147 Delaware Ave., viding useful and up-to-date information for
Suite B, Buffalo, NY 14217. 716-836-3486. those who follow a gluten-free diet. Topics
Michele Miller, editor and publisher. include gluten-free regulations and news, travel,
michele@wnyfamilymagazine.com recipes, living well and savings Contact: Editorial
writermag.com The Writer | 43
 MARKETS
Dept., Gluten-Free Living magazine, 25 Braintree
Hill Office Park, Suite 404, Braintree, MA 02184.
glutenfreeliving.com
VEGNEWS Magazine for vegetarians. Inter-
ested in food features, restaurant reviews, inter-
views, business profiles, features, plus queries for
the regular departments. Prefers queries with
clips by email. Contact: Ryan Ritchie, VegNews,
3505 20th St., San Francisco, CA 94110. 415-642-
6397 x102. editorial@vegnews.com vegnews.com
WINE ENTHUSIAST MAGAZINE Features
articles about wine, travel and fine food in print
and online. Also interested in items for the front-
of-book and back-of-book sections. Submit pro-
posals by email or regular mail. Monthly.
Contact: Managing editor, Wine Enthusiast
Magazine, 333 N. Bedford Road, Mt. Kisco, NY
10549. See website for specific editor emails.
winemag.com
HEALTH/FITNESS/SPORTS
AMERICAN ANGLER Publication devoted
exclusively to fly-fishing, with an emphasis on
cold water fly-fishing for trout, steelhead and
salmon. Seeks articles about techniques, finding
fishing spots, information about different types of
fish, casting. Author must be prepared to provide
photos to accompany how-to articles. Email que-
ries preferred. Bimonthly. Contact: Benjamin
Romans, Editor, American Angler, 735 Broad St.,
Augusta, GA 30904. 706-828-3971.
benjaminromans@gmail.com
americanangler.com
BACKPACKER Primarily for wilderness hikers
in North America. Seeks articles about destina-
tions, gear, personalities, techniques. Occasion-
ally publishes articles about kayaking/canoeing,
snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and other
human-powered travel modes. Departments also
open to freelancers. Email queries only. 9x/year.
Contact: Backpacker. Check website for editor
email addresses. backpacker.com
BLACK BELT Features articles related to mar-
tial arts: technical and strategic skills, training
methods and fitness, and historical and philo-
sophical topics. Pays more for articles with pho-
tos. Submit query letters by email or regular mail.
Contact: Robert W. Young, 24900 Anza Drive,
Unit E, Valencia, CA 91355.
byoung@aimmedia.com blackbeltmag.com
CANOE & KAYAK MAGAZINE Publishes
articles and features on canoeing, kayaking and
rafting adventures, destinations, boat and equip-
ment reviews, techniques and how-tos. Accepts
articles from authors experienced in paddle
sports. Submit query by email. 5x/year. Contact:
Canoe & Kayak. Check website for specific edi-
44 | The Writer October 2016
tors email addresses. canoekayak.com
EXPLORE For Canadas active outdoor enthusi-
asts. Covers adventure travel, hiking, mountain
biking, climbing, paddling, winter sports. Send
queries and submissions by email (preferred) or
regular mail. 4x/year. Contact: Explore, 802-1166
Alberni St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3Z3.
explore@explore-mag.com explore-mag.com
IDEA PILATES TODAY Magazine for Pilates
professionals accepting articles on the topics of
program design, business, equipment, instructor
skills, interviews, case studies and news. Email
query letter. Contact: IDEA Health & Fitness
Association, 10190 Telesis Court, San Diego, CA
92121. 858-535-8979, ext. 7. swebster@ideafit.com
ideafit.com/idea-pilates-today
OUTSIDE For people with active lifestyles. Cov-
ers outdoor events, regions, sports and adventure
travel, personal experiences, the environment,
outdoor equipment. Submit queries only and rele-
vant clips by postal mail. Monthly. Contact: Edi-
torial Department, Outside magazine, 400 Market
St., Santa Fe, NM 87501. outsideonline.com
PREVENTION Monthly healthy living maga-
zine covering health news and research from
experts, food and nutrition, beauty, fitness, self-
help and relationships. Contact: Prevention. 733
Third Ave., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10017. 212-
808-1710. editor@prevention.com prevention.com
WOMENS ADVENTURE Adventure, sports
and travel magazine for women. Publishes arti-
cles about female role models, tech gear, outdoor
activities and community service. Also publishes
some personal essays. Contact: Womens Adven-
ture, P.O. Box 888, Telluride, CO 81435.
edit@womensadventuremagazine.com
womensadventuremagazine.com
YOGA JOURNAL Magazine on the practice
and philosophy of yoga. Accepting articles for
departments on the yoga lifestyle and nutrition/
cooking. Submit query by email. Contact: Yoga
Journal. queries@yjmag.com yogajournal.com
HOME AND GARDEN
THE AMERICAN GARDENER Official pub-
lication of the American Horticultural Society.
Offers feature-length articles, including in-depth
profiles of plant groups, descriptions of innova-
tive landscape design projects, gardener and gar-
den profiles, historical developments in
American gardening and descriptions of impor-
tant plant breeding and research programs tai-
lored to a lay audience. Bimonthly. Submit
proposals by email or regular mail. Contact: The
American Gardener, American Horticultural
Society, 7931 E. Boulevard Drive, Alexandria, VA
22308. editor@ahs.org ahs.org
CANADIAN HOUSE & HOME Offers an
inside look at home decor in Canada, including
information on the latest furniture, fabrics and
accessories. Also includes tips from renovation
experts and tricks for organizing and entertaining
with style. Submit queries with clips by email.
Contact: Canadian House & Home.
editorialteam@hhmedia.com
houseandhome.com
CHICAGO HOME & GARDEN Features
outstanding Chicago-area homes and landscapes.
Articles cover fine art, antiques, decorating,
entertaining and travel. Send sample photos with
query. Products featured must be available at a
showroom or boutique in the Chicago area. Send
queries by email. Contact: Chicago Home &
Garden,777 W. Chicago Ave., FC-3 Atrium, Chi-
cago, IL 60654. See website for editors emails.
chicagohomemag.com
VERANDA Features articles on the decorative
arts, books, collectibles, luxury goods, interiors,
gardens, table settings, floral arrangements,
unusual travel destinations, furnishings. Submit
by regular mail only. Contact: Veranda, 300 W.
57th St., New York, NY 10019, Attn: Carolyn
Englefield. clinton@veranda.com veranda.com
PERFORMING ARTS
AMERICAN THEATRE Covers trends and
events in all types of theater, as well as economic
and legislative developments affecting the arts,
with a particular focus on professional, nonprofit
theater. Mail or email query. Contact: Jim
OQuinn, Editor-in-Chief, American Theatre,
520 8th Ave., Fl. 24, New York, NY 10018.
212-609-5900. at@tcg.org tcg.org
DRAMATICS Monthly magazine for high
school theater students and teachers with practi-
cal articles about acting, directing, design, pro-
duction and career-oriented profiles of working
theatre professionals. Also publishes one-act and
full-length plays. Plays should be performable in
high schools. Contact: Donald Corathers, Editor,
Dramatics Magazine, 2343 Auburn Ave., Cincin-
nati, OH 45219. dcorathers@schooltheatre.org
www.schooltheatre.org/resources/dramatics
EMMY Bimonthly industry magazine for TV
professionals and enthusiasts. Official publication
of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. No
highly technical articles or academic/fan-maga-
zine type articles. Best section for newcomers is
Labors of Love, the 500-word, front-of-book
profiles of TV people. Contact: Editor, Emmy,
5220 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA
91601. emmys.com/emmymag
OPERA NEWS Publishes articles of interest for
the opera professional and the opera buff. No fic-

tion or personal remembrances. Submit query or
manuscript and published writing samples via
email. Contact: Kitty March, Opera News, 70
Lincoln Center Plaza, Fl. 6, New York, NY 10023.
info@operanews.com operanews.com
TEACHING THEATRE JOURNAL Quar-
terly journal for professional theater educators.
Includes articles on acting, directing, playwriting,
technical theater, profiles of outstanding educa-
tional theatre programs, curriculum design,
assessment, teaching methodology and reports of
current trends or issues in the field. Contact:
Teaching Theatre, 2343 Auburn Ave., Cincinatti,
OH 45219. www.schooltheatre.org/resources/
teachingtheatre
REGIONAL/CITY
ADIRONDACK LIFE Publishes articles about
history, culture, recreation, wildlife and personal-
ities in the Adirondack Park region of New York
State. Submit queries by email (preferred) or
postal mail with clips of previously published
work. Contact: Annie Stoltie, Editor, Adirondack
Life, P.O. Box 410, Jay, NY 12941.
astoltie@adirondacklife.com
adirondacklifemag.com
ATLANTA Publishes articles about life and style,
food and dining, arts and entertainment, and
general-interest stories about Atlanta and the sur-
rounding area. Monthly. Contact: Atlanta Maga-
zine, 260 Peachtree St., Suite 300, Atlanta, GA
30303. 404-527-5500. Steve Fennessy,
sfennessy@atlantamagazine.com
atlantamagazine.com
BALTIMORE Covers the Baltimore metro area
with articles about local people, events, trends
and ideas. Prefers email queries, but will accept
queries by postal mail. Monthly. Contact: Balti-
more magazine. 1000 Lancaster St., Suite 400,
Baltimore, MD 21202. 443-873-3900.
See website for editorial email addresses.
baltimoremagazine.net
CHICAGO Publishes articles about living in
Chicago, including dining, entertainment, shop-
ping, fashion, news and politics, home and gar-
den. Email queries to appropriate editors as listed
on the website. Monthly. Contact: Chicago Mag-
azine, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1100, Chicago,
IL 60611. 312-222-8999. See website for editorial
email addresses. chicagomag.com
THE IOWAN Covers current issues, history,
culture, people, places and events of Iowa. Submit
queries by email. Bimonthly. Contact: The
Iowan, 300 Walnut St., Suite 6, Des Moines, IA
50309. 515-246-0402. editor@iowan.com
iowan.com
KANSAS! Magazine devoted to promoting
tourism in Kansas. Especially interested in travel
articles. Submit queries by postal mail or email.
Quarterly. Contact: Editor, KANSAS! Magazine,
Attn: Andrea Etzel, 1020 S. Kansas Ave., Suite
200, Topeka, KS 66612. 785-296-8478.
ksmagazine@sunflowerpub.com kansasmag.com
LAKE SUPERIOR MAGAZINE Focuses on
Lake Superior region (U.S. and Canada) history,
current events, lifestyles, environment and tour-
ism. Submit manuscript by postal mail or email.
Bimonthly. Contact: Lake Superior Port Cities
Inc., Publishers, 310 E. Superior St. #125, Duluth,
MN 55802. subs@lakesuperior.com
lakesuperior.com
LONG ISLAND WOMAN For women ages
35 and older in the Long Island, New York,
region. Publishes personality profiles and articles
on a wide variety of topics, including lifestyles
and family, health, beauty, fashion, food and
travel. Submit queries and articles by email only.
Monthly. Contact: Long Island Woman, P.O. Box
176, Malverne, NY 11565. 516-505-0555.
editor@liwomanonline.com liwomanonline.com
MIDWEST LIVING Publishes travel, food,
garden and home-decorating articles relating to
the Midwest states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,
Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri,
North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kan-
sas. Submit clips and query by postal mail.
Bimonthly. Contact: Query Editor, Midwest Liv-
ing, 1716 Locust St., Des Moines, IA 50309.
midwestliving@meredith.com
midwestliving.com
NEW JERSEY MONTHLY Publication cov-
ering trends, people and news in New Jersey,
including local personalities, current issues, poli-
tics, business, healthcare, history and attractions,
shopping, recreation, nightlife, local sports/ath-
letes, home and garden. Submit queries by email.
Monthly. Contact: New Jersey Monthly, 55 Park
Place, P.O. Box 920, Morristown, NJ 07963.
973-539-8230. See website for editorial email
addresses. njmonthly.com
NEW YORK MAGAZINE Covers New York
City news, culture, entertainment, lifestyle, fash-
ion and personalities. Weekly. Contact: Editorial
Submissions, New York Media, 75 Varick St.,
New York, NY 10013.
editorialsubmissions@nymag.com nymag.com
NEWPORT LIFE MAGAZINE A lifestyle
magazine about the people, places and attractions
of Newport County in Rhode Island. Submit que-
ries by postal mail. Bimonthly. Contact: Newport
Life Magazine, 101 Malbone Road, Newport, RI
02840. 401-841-0200. Annie Sherman, Managing
Editor, asherman@newportri.com
newportlifemagazine.com
Get up-to-date information on
markets at writermag.com
NORTH DAKOTA HORIZONS Publishes
articles showcasing North Dakota people, places
and events. Be prepared to submit photos or illus-
trations with article, if possible. Quarterly.
Contact: Editor, North Dakota Horizons, P.O.
Box 1091, Bismarck, ND 58502. 866-462-0744.
ndhorizons@btinet.net ndhorizons.com
OHIO MAGAZINE Publishes stories about all
aspects of Ohio, including its culture and heri-
tage, people and travel spots. Submit queries by
email or postal mail. Monthly. Contact: Jim Vick-
ers, Editor, Ohio Magazine, 1422 Euclid Ave.,
Suite 730, Cleveland, OH 44115.
jvickers@ohiomagazine.com ohiomagazine.com
OKLAHOMA TODAY Explores the people,
places, culture and events of Oklahoma. Prefers
submission of queries or manuscripts by email.
Bimonthly. Contact: Nathan Gunter, Managing
Editor. Oklahoma Today, 120 N. Robinson Ave.,
Suite 600, Oklahoma City, OK 73102. 405-230-
8450. Nathan.gunter@oklahomatoday.com
oklahomatoday.com
OREGON COAST Covers communities, busi-
nesses, events, people, activities and the natural
wonders that make up the Oregon coast. Query
by email or postal mail. Bimonthly. Contact:
Oregon Coast magazine, 4969 Highway 101 N.,
Suite 2, Florence, OR 97439. 541-997-8401.
edit@nwmags.com oregoncoastmagazine.com
OUR STATE: DOWN HOME IN
NORTH CAROLINA Publishes articles that
focus on North Carolina history, personalities,
travel, arts and crafts, nature, adventure, culture
and nostalgia. Monthly. Contact: Editor, Our
State Magazine, P.O. Box 4552, Greensboro, NC
27404. editorial@ourstate.com ourstate.com
PORTLAND MAGAZINE Celebrates the
Portland, Maine, region with features on person-
alities, arts, getaways, architecture, cuisine and
lighthearted glimpses of Yankee contradictions.
Also publishes fiction. Submit queries to editor
by online submission manager. 10x/year. Charges
$25 reading fee. Contact: Portland Magazine, 165
State St., Portland, ME 04101. 207-775-4339.
staff@portlandmonthly.com
portlandmonthly.com
SEATTLE Devoted to local issues, lifestyle,
home, travel and entertainment articles about the
greater Seattle area. Submit queries and clips by
email as noted on the website. Monthly. Contact:
Seattle Magazine, Tiger Oak Publications, Inc.,
1417 4th Ave., Suite 600, Seattle WA 98101.
206-284-1750. Check website for editor email
addresses. seattlemag.com
SW MONTANA MAGAZINE Online maga-
zine covering the people and places of SW Mon-
writermag.com The Writer | 45
MARKETS
tana. Submit 300-700 word articles via online
submission manager. Contact: SW Montana
Magazine, P.O. Box 11083, Bozeman, MT 59719.
406-599-4433. swmontanamagazine.com
TETON FAMILY MAGAZINE Published for
families in the Jackson, Wyoming or Teton Valley
area. Seeks stories that promote a sustainable and
healthy lifestyle. Welcomes local writers. Submit
query and a writing sample by email.
Contact: Teton Family Magazine.
christina@tetonfamilymagazine.com
tetonfamilymagazine.com
TORONTO LIFE Features articles about the
local urban scene in Toronto. Submit unpub-
lished articles and queries by email or regular
mail. Monthly. Contact: Editorial Department,
Toronto Life, Urban Group, St. Joseph Media
Corp, Queen Richmond Centre, Toronto, ON
M5C 1S2. editorial@torontolife.com
torontolife.com
VANCOUVER MAGAZINE City magazine
with a focus on urban life (sports, civics, social
affairs, business, politics, media, restaurants, fash-
ion, shopping and nightlife). Submit queries or
manuscript. 10x/year. Contact: 2608 Granville
St., Suite 560, Vancouver, BC V6H 3V3, Canada.
604-877-7732. mail@vancouvermagazine.com
vanmag.com
VERMONT LIFE Explores and celebrates the
lifestyle and culture of Vermont today with arti-
cles and photos. No op-ed pieces, first-person
accounts, memoirs, poetry, historical reconstruc-
tions, anniversary stories or articles that pro-
mote an individual business, event or service
organization. Submit queries by email. Quarterly.
Contact: Vermont Life, One National Life Drive,
6th Floor, Montpelier, VT 05620.
editors@vtlife.com vermontlife.com
YANKEE MAGAZINE Regional magazine for
the six New England states. Publishes home,
travel, food and nonfiction editorial articles.
Include writing samples with submissions.
Contact: Joe Bills, Yankee Magazine, P.O. Box
520, Dublin, NH 03444. editors@yankeepub.com
yankeemagazine.com
TRAVEL
AFAR Travel magazine covering culture, crafts
and foods of interesting places around the world.
Queries must be pitched specifically to one of the
existing sections. Contact: Afar Magazine, 130
Battery St., 6th Floor, San Francisco, California
94111. editorial@afar.com afar.com
BRITISH COLUMBIA MAGAZINE Pub-
lishes articles about the people, heritage, history,
travel destinations, parks, wilderness and ecology.
of British Columbia. Email queries preferred.
46 | The Writer October 2016
Quarterly. Contact: Jane Nahirny, Editor, British
Columbia Magazine, 3rd Floor, 1803 Douglas St.,
Victoria, BC, V8T 5C3. 250-356-5860.
editor@bcmag.ca bcmag.ca
THE EXPEDITIONER Online travel magazine
accepting unsolicited first-person travel stories
from 1,100 to 1,300 words. Contact: Expedi-
tioner. Matt Stabile, matt@theexpeditioner.com
theexpeditioner.com
OVERNIGHT BUSES TRAVEL
MAGAZINE iPad travel magazine looking for
long-form travel essays, travel journalism and
personal narratives. 2,000 word minimum. Sub-
mit final manuscripts only. No guides or how-tos.
Favors stories with photos. Published twice a
year. Contact: Overnight Buses Travel Magazine.
submissions@overnightbuses.com
overnightbuses.com
PASSPORT MAGAZINE Travel magazine for
gay and lesbian readers featuring articles about
travel opportunities, gay-friendly destinations
and events around the world. Submit queries by
postal mail. Contact: Passport Magazine, 247 W.
35th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001.
editor@passportmagazine.net
passportmagazine.com
TRAILER LIFE Targeted to RV travelers,
including folding trailers, fifth-wheel and travel
trailers, motorhomes, camping vans and truck
campers. Publishes articles about interesting des-
tinations, RV-lifestyle personalities, on-the-road
hobbies, new products, campgrounds and main-
tenance. Submit queries by postal mail. Contact:
Trailer Life, Managing Editor, TL Enterprises
Inc., 2575 Vista Del Mar, Ventura, CA 93001.
800-765-1912. info@trailerlife.com trailerlife.com
TRANSITIONS ABROAD Articles with prac-
tical travel information for webzine about cul-
tural travel, the working traveler, living abroad
and student travel/work/volunteering/study.
Check website for list of possible article topics.
Requests at least two photos with the submission.
Submit manuscript by email. 6x/year.
Contact: Transitions Abroad.
webeditorial@transitionsabroad.com
transitionsabroad.com
TRAVEL + LEISURE Monthly magazine for
sophisticated, active travelers planning both plea-
sure and business trips. Stories should provide
service information including when to go, how to
get there, where to stay, where to eat, what to see
and do. Query letters by email preferred.
Contact: Travel + Leisure magazine, 225 Liberty
St. New York, NY 10281.
submissions@travelandleisure.com
travelandleisure.com
VAGABUNDO MAGAZINE Digital travel
magazine and blog focusing on the spirit of
adventure, independence and discovery. Send
queries using online form. Contact: Vagabundo
Magazine. vagabundomagazine.com
WANDERLUST British travel magazine seeks
articles about travel around the world, including
destination features, unusual travel adventures,
special-interest features and travel advice. Submit
queries by email. Contact: Wanderlust, P.O. Box
1832, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1YT, UK.
submissions@wanderlust.co.uk
wanderlust.co.uk
WEDDING
ARIZONA BRIDE Publishes articles about
weddings and brides in Arizona. Prefers to hire
local freelancers who are experienced in writing
for bridal and lifestyle magazines.
Contact: Arizona Bride, Tiger Oak Media, Inc.,
One Tiger Oak Plaza, 900 S. Third St., Minneap-
olis, MN 55415. Sarah Baumann, Editor:
sarah.baumann@tigeroak.com
arizonabridemag.com
BRIDE & GROOM Wedding publication for
New England. Publishes articles on any and all
topics relating to wedding planning and trends.
Also accepts honeymoon articles. Contact: Bride
& Groom Magazine, Attn: Managing Editor, 334
Boston Turnpike, Shrewsbury, MA 01545.
editor@bridegroommag.com
originalweddingexpo.com
SEATTLE BRIDE Open to queries from local
freelancers for articles about weddings and brides
in the Seattle area. Submit by email with pub-
lished writing samples. Contact: Seattle Bride,
Tiger Oak Media, Inc., 1417 Fourth Ave., Ste.
600, Seattle, WA 98101. Kate Calamusa, editor:
seattlebrideeditor@tigeroak.com
seattlebridemag.com
WISCONSIN BRIDE Bridal magazine for
engaged couples in Wisconsin. Looking for local
freelancers to cover stories on weddings and brides
in the area. Contact: Wisconsin Bride, Tiger Oak
Media, Inc., One Tiger Oak Plaza, 900 S. Third St.,
Minneapolis, MN 55415. Sarah Baumann, Editor:
sarah.baumann@tigeroak.com wibride.com
WRITING/PUBLISHING
QUILL & QUIRE Publication for the Canadian
book-publishing industry. Offers news and arti-
cles about the writing and publishing industry in
Canada. Also publishes author profiles and
reviews of Canadian books. Submit queries by
email. 10x/year. Contact: Quill & Quire. 111
Queen St. E., Suite 320, Toronto, ON, M5C 1S2.
416-364-3333. Sue Carter, Editor.
scarter@quillandquire.com quillandquire.com
Classifieds
READERS should use caution when entering into any
legal contract with a literary service offering agenting-
type assistance; publishers who charge, rather than
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writermag.com The Writer | 47

HOW I WRITE
BY ALLISON FUTTERMAN
Amulya Malladi
P
ublished in June of this year,
A House for Happy Mothers
is Amulya Malladis sixth
novel. Born and raised in
India, this international writer cur-
rently lives in Copenhagen, where she
balances family, writing, and her work
as a marketing director for a medical
device company.
According to Malladi, A House for
Happy Mothers is about paid surrogacy
and the story of two women, the bio-
logical mother Priya, a well-off woman
from Silicon Valley, and the surrogate,
Asha, who is from a poor background.
As with all of her novels, the narrative
comes to life with a relationship- and
character-driven story in which
culture(s) plays a prominent and
important role.
Writing in Copenhagen
I feel isolated from a literary perspec-
tive in Copenhagen as I dont know
many other English writers in the city.
However, as a reader my needs are
met, as Danes are prolific readers. The
Louisiana Museum holds a literary fes-
tival every year. Many books are trans-
lated into Danish to cater to this
reading market, even one of mine that
was set in Denmark.
Relationships
I am a character-driven writer, and I
believe that once you define a charac-
ter, they tell their story. Characters are
defined not just by their personality
but also by their relationships to other
characters. So its no surprise that rela-
tionships are central to my stories.
And relationships are not always
smooth and easy they have edges
and help me know my characters and
their edges better.
48 | The Writer October 2016
Culture-driven narrative
I feel like a citizen of the world. I have
now lived outside of India, where I
grew up, longer than I lived in India. I
have picked up traditions and even
accents from India, the United States,
and Denmark. I struggle with my cul-
tural identity where do I really come
from? And even harder, where do I
really belong? Everywhere or nowhere?
Since many of my stories are about
women trying to find their place in
society, their cultural identities play a
major role in driving their narrative.
Process evolution
Part of the change in process or philos-
ophy is aging. I wrote my first five
books in my 20s and my sixth book is
coming out in my 40s. Maturity has
changed one major aspect of writing
Im not rushing to the finish line any-
more. I take my time getting to the end.
Im also harder on myself. Im not
demanding perfection, but I am
tougher on what I write. I think its
because Ive now lived longer, read
more books hopefully, I know a little
more than I used to. One thing that
hasnt changed is plotting I still cant
plot, mostly because just like the reader,
Im curious and excited to see what hap-
pens next; its my motivation to write.
Real-life inspiration
My characters are my own but have
traits of people I meet and know. The
situations my characters find them-
selves in are sometimes imagined,
sometimes based on real life, and some-
times a combination. But if you tell me
something and it sticks with me, theres
a good chance it may end up in a book.
Finding writing time
Theres no mystery to it. I make time. I
think when you really want to do
something, you find the time to do that
something. I also have a very under-
standing family they dont mind that
I write for five hours a day during holi-
days or that Im up until 5 in the morn-
ing writing on weekends (and sleeping
in, missing the basketball runs) or that
I often say when disturbed, What? Im
in the middle of a sentence.
Allison Futterman is a freelance writer who
has been published in several magazines.
extra
You can't find this in print.
EXCERPT: A HOUSE FOR HAPPY MOTHERS BY AMULYA MALLADI
Chapter One
Rock-a-bye baby in the tree top, when the wind blows, the
cradle will rock... please let her be pregnant.
The nursery rhyme played itself in her head over and
over again as she tried to fall asleep.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
This one chance, she thought desperately. God, give me
this one last chance.
Please, please, please, she whispered under her breath.
And even though she was lying down in bed, she knew
she was really on her knees.
By two in the morning, Priya finally gave up trying to sleep.
She looked in disbelief at her husband next to her. How
could he sleep? Why wasnt he worried like she was? Why
wasnt his head throbbing like hers, his mind tired of run-
ning through each and every dreadful possibility?
She nudged him.
What? Madhu mumbled, his eyes still closed.
I cant sleep, Priya said. Have you thought about that instead of running around
Just count them sheep, he mumbled again, then turned
his back to her.
Even half-asleep, he had to crack a joke.
Madhu, damn it, Im freaking out here, she said in
frustration.
Ill give you a hundred dollars to go to sleep and five
hundred to just be quiet, he said. He made some kissing
sounds before continuing to snore.
Priya sighed.
He had a right to sleep. Hell, she should be sleeping.
But she hadnt in a week, not since they had flown to
Hyderabad from California. It had been a stressful seven
days. They had chosen a surrogate to carry their baby. Priya
had had her eggs extracted. Dreadful process. And then
Madhu had ejaculated into a cup. Their baby was made in a
test tube and inserted into the surrogate. And now, in just a
few hours, they would know if their surrogate was pregnant.
They didnt always get pregnant. There were times when
they didnt.
Oh God, please, please,
Priya chanted silently,
You know what, youre
insensitive for sleeping
while Im stewing over
here, she said at Madhus
sleeping form. She doubted
he heard her. Its not like
this is the neighbors baby,
you know.
Madhu didnt make a sound.
Obviously this was not the ideal way to have a baby. The
easiest way would be to get knocked upbut that hadnt
quite worked out for them. And now after three miscar-
riages and three failed IVF treatments, each costing about
$10,000, surrogacy had become the only way out. The only
way to have a child, a family.
Priyasha, dont be stupid; if you cant have a baby, maybe
youre not meant to have a baby, her mother had said.
impregnating some strange woman with your child?
Her mother, who went by Sush, short for Sushila, never
shortened Priyas name as everyone else did.
Your name means a dear wish and you are a dear wish
and thats what youll always be, Sush liked to say. But what
Sush said was in sharp contrast to what Sush did, which was
consistently make Priya feel like a massive failure in every
aspect of her life. Far from a dear wish. Far from the daugh-
ter Sush had wanted.
My own child is exploiting my people, Sush said when
Priya announced her decision over the phone. I cant sup-
port this, Priyasha. I will never support this. Its an exploita-
tion of the poor, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
When she first introduced the idea to Madhu, his eyes had
all but bugged out.
Are you fucking nuts?
Hear me out, Madhu, Priya had said.
Are you fucking nuts? he repeated.
 Priya had sighed. Yes, she said, giving in. Im
nuts. I want a baby and goddamn it...Come on,
Madhu, this is our last chance. Hell, this is our only
chance. Our only, only, last chance. I want this.
No, Madhu had said. Priya, this isnt some hand-
crafted Indian sari you buy at the fair trade store. This
is a baby. You cant just rent a body.
But Priya had sent e-mail after e-mail with infor-
mation about how safe it was, how effective it had
been for others like them, and most important, how
the money they gave the surrogate helped her family
and improved the quality of her life.
No, Madhu had said. You want to help the poor,
donate money.
We already donate money, Priya said. But now I
want the donation to work for me.
By definition, a charitable donation is selfless,
Madhu said.
They went back and forth and back and forth until
he finally caved. And though Madhu had agreed, he
still stood on the sidelines. Once she had a child, it
wouldnt matter how the baby got here, Priya thought,
and until then shed manage Madhu, shed manage her
guilt, their guilt...and then the baby would be here
and it would be all right. Because once Priya had
thought of them being a familyonce that thought had
ensconced itself inside her psyche, she couldnt devolve
and just accept their being a couple. It was not enough.
Madhu rolled over now, deep in sleep, and faced Priya.
She smiled at him. He would make a great dad, she
thought, and gently touched his face. Would they have a
daughter or a son? A daughter would get spoiled. If she
wanted a pony, Madhu would get her the prettiest one.
She would wrap him around her little finger. And if
they had a boy? Oh, Madhu would run out and buy a
cricket uniform and teach his son how to bowl and bat.
He would adore his son. They would have one of those
great relationships that went from being father and son
to being friends as they grew older.
Yes, she could see Madhu would be a fabulous par-
ent. But Priya wasnt so sure about herself. What kind
of mother would she be? Her own had not been a stel-
lar example of motherhood.
Graphic designer? Why? You got a masters in
urban development; why on earth would you not do
something to help the weak in our world? Sush had
demanded when Priya changed career paths.
Priyas intentions had been noble. She had gotten her
bachelors degree in political science from Berkeley and
went on to complete her masters at Ohio State University.
She had planned on finding a job at an NGO and living
her life fulfilling her mothers expectations of her, she
really had, but she had always had a creative streak.
Sush never appreciated her daughters painting
skills (painters make no money and help no one),
but Andrew had supported his daughters hobby.
Priya, however, was proud to have put her artistic
skills to good use, the best use she could while earning
a living. She ran a studio for an advertising agency. She
managed the creatives, the writers and graphic design-
ers, people more creative than she was, in a corporate
setting, and she did her job well. The brainstorming,
the creative part, was fantastic, but the administrative
nonsense was just that. The endless staff meetings, the
cover-your-ass e-mails, the holding of hands of
unhappy clients, the divas and their egos that needed
to be soothed time and again. But no job was perfect,
and Priya was content with her professional career.
She didnt want more. This was good.
Born and bred in the corporate world and a sales
executive himself, Madhu didnt understand her lack
of ambition, and when she complained about the poli-
tics and the corporate backstabbing, he would say,
You sound just like Sush.
Before the first miscarriage, she had painted regu-
larly; some small pieces had even ended up in galleries
and a few of those had even sold. But even with those
small successes, painting had always been a private
meditation, a one-on-one communion with her deeper
self, a visceral need to express. Once she started to lose
the babies, something inside her shriveled. She
couldnt paint like she used to.
If our daughter wants to become a musician, well
let her, she whispered now to Madhus sleeping form.
We wont push her to be this or that, just herself.
He didnt stir, and Priya curbed the urge to wake
him again, to sit vigil with her as they waited for news
that their child had been conceived.
Priya got exactly two hours of sleep before Madhu
gently rocked her awake.
He was ready. She could smell the Dove soap on
him, and his hair was still wet. She could hear the
clashing of utensils downstairs. The maid washing
dishes, getting ready to wash clothes. She could smell
the filtered coffee that Sairam, her father-in-law, drank
every morning, the same coffee that Madhu drank
every morning back home in the Bay Area, rain or
shine, whether he had time for it or not.
Is it late? Priya asked groggily.
Not really, he said a little hesitantly, and Priya sat up.
 How late? she demanded, her heart rate acceler-
ating. If they couldnt even make it on time for this,
how on earth would they get anything done once
they had the baby?
Relax, we still have an hour to get ready, he said.
Srirampuram was a two-hour drive from Hyder-
abad, but considering the traffic, they allotted three
hours to get there on time.
Since shed taken a bath before going to bed, Priya
decided to forgo a shower and get ready as quickly as
possible, as she knew they were going to lose time
downstairs trying to avoid her mother-in-laws enor-
mous South Indianstyle breakfast.
Eat, Amma, eat, Prasanna said. Eat an idli. Or just
a bowl of sambhar. Youre too thin, Priya, I can see
your collarbones.
Atha, Im really not feeling up to it, Priya said.
Her stomach was churning with tension. Just coffee
today. Tomorrow, I promise Ill eat.
When Priya had first met Madhus parents, she had
called them by their first names, but she was soon
advised by Madhu to call them Atha and Mava, mother-
in-law and father-in-law, because thats what good
Telugu Indians did. Priya, for her part, had told him not
to call her parents anything but Andrew and Sush.
Priya watched Madhu plow into his breakfast. He
missed eating food like this in California. Even
though South Indian food was available, this was
vacation eating; this was Amma-made food eating.
Amma, leave her alone, Madhu said as he put
another fresh idli on his plate.
Shes too thin, Madhu, Prasanna complained.
She must eat.
Its OK if she doesnt eat one morning, Sairam
said, though he did agree with his wife that Priya was
too thin.
Stick figures might be the norm in America, but
here we like our women well rounded, Prasanna said
authoritatively, and Priya all but choked on her coffee.
Madhu looked up from his idli and shook his head.
She looks fabulous, he said, and winked at Priya.
I dont understand Prasanna began.
You dont have to, Amma; shes my wife, Madhu
said, standing up. We have to go. Now wish us luck
and stop nagging Priya about how she looks.
There were other husbands, Indian husbands, who
always sided with their parents. Priya would hear
Indian women, mostly the wives of Madhus friends,
bitch about how when they visited his parents it was
all about them.
Arrey, she tells him, in front of me, what she thinks
Im doing wrong in raising our children, and he just
nods his head. Its so insulting, one would complain.
Mine just hates me. Whines about everything I
do, and he just sits there and takes it. If my parents
said anything about my husband, Id defend him. Is it
too much to expect the same of him? another would
chime in.
Priya didnt have much to say when their eyes
turned to her. They expected her to narrate her own
harrowing mother-in-law experiences, but what
could she say? Madhu was always on her side.
Good luck, Prasanna said, not angrily but in
resigned acceptance that Priya would indeed not eat
anything. Whatever happens, Priya, keep your chin
up, OK?
Unlike Andrew and Sush, Prasanna and Sairam
were all for having a baby the surrogate way. They
didnt see it as an exploitation of the poor as Sush
did; they saw it as a way for them to have a grand-
child while helping another family have a better life.
You know, you couldve eaten one measly idli and
killed that whole breakfast chitchat, Madhu said as
they merged into traffic. At 7:00 a.m., it was already
chaos and would only get worse as the day pro-
gressed. There was no rush hour hereall hours
were rush hour.
So you prefer a well-rounded wife instead of a
healthy one? Priya teased. She didnt want to fight today.
Well, what exactly do you mean by well
rounded? Madhu asked as he honked at a driver not
going fast enough.
Do you really think the guy in front of you can
hear your honk over the others? Priya asked.
The auto rickshaw moved out of Madhus way. In
India if you dont honk, youll get nowhere.
Now theres a guy honking at you, Priya said,
turning around.
God knows who hes honking at, but it aint me,
Madhu said.
Priya couldnt imagine driving on the roads of
Hyderabad. The idea of being in a vehicle here was
stressful enough without having to be the driver. The
first time she came with Madhu to India, she had
insisted that he not drive after hearing all the nightmar-
ish stories about car accidents. But these were his
streets, no matter how much they had changed. Madhu
said hed be damned if he let someone else drive him. To
his credit, they were still alive and intactnot even a
scratch on the carwell, at least not any new ones.
 So, Priya said as Madhu managed to avoid hit-
ting a scooter that decided to cut him off with little
room to spare. Madhu called them the suicide
squadpeople he was saving from killing them-
selves. They were all over the streetsthe woman
with her baby, the scooter, the moped, the motorcy-
cle, the auto rickshawthey all merrily cut in and
hoped for the best.
So, what? Madhu asked. If the driving was
stressing him out, she couldnt tell. He was relaxed as
he honked, braked, and changed gears.
You still havent told me, Priya said.
They had been discussing it for the past few days,
and Madhu got squeamish each time she brought up
the topic.
I dont want to talk about this, Madhu said, and
Priya could see he was embarrassed.
Come on, did you or did you not need any of the
porno movies they gave you? Priya asked with a smile.
I dont want to talk about this, he repeated.
You know I wouldve told you if it were me,
Priya said. And it isnt the first time youve had
to...you knowshe paused for effect happier in some ways if they had adopted. It wasnt
masturbate into a cup.
And I didnt tell you then, either, Madhu said.
They both knew they were talking about this to
avoid dwelling on whether their surrogate was preg-
nant or not. They had chosen this particular woman
over two others. Madhu had been drawn to her
because of her age. She was twenty-five and had two
children. This would be her first time as a surrogate.
She came from a good family and had a sister-in-
law who had also been a surrogate. Her husband
was a house painter, and they lived in a village close
to Srirampuram.
The other two women were slightly older than this
one and had been surrogates before. For some rea-
son, the fact that they had done this before made
Madhu and Priya wary. They shouldve felt surer
because the women were experienced, but they still
wanted this woman.
And then there was the name.
Priya was immediately attracted to Asha because
her name meant hope, just as Priyasha did. One hope
was giving hope to another hope; there was some-
thing inevitable about it, as if the universe had
planned it.
Doctor Swati Gudla, their doctor and owner of the
Happy Mothers clinic, had been delighted with their
choice, assuring them that Asha would make a won-
derful surrogate.
Both Madhu and Priya had gotten to know Doctor
Swati quite well over the phone in the past few
months. There were many, many conversations to be
had: about money, legalities, medical conditions, and
more. They liked her instantly, from the very first time
they had Skyped. She was down-to-earth and talked
sensibly about the process, warning them about the
emotional and financial toll. Financially, this was a lot
cheaper than having three IVFs. Emotionally, they
crossed their fingers that it would be less harrowing.
You know Id tell you if I had to use porn, Priya
told Madhu in a serious tone. I wish it were that
easy for women. My stomach is still churning, thanks
to that extraction business.
Madhu reached out his hand and touched hers.
I wish you couldve used porn, too, he said. I
know it was painful.
But worth it, right?
Madhu shrugged. He didnt say it because it would
hurt Priya, but she knew that he didnt want a baby at
any cost like she did. He wouldve been plenty happy
to live their lives without a child. He wouldve been
like Priya was against adopting, but she looked at it as
a last resort. And as yet, there was this one avenue that
was still available to them. If this didnt work out, then
maybe...Oh God, please let this work.
Do you think the baby will learn Telugu?
Madhu asked.
Well, if you speak to her in Telugu, she will
learn Telugu. If I speak to her in Telugu, shell
learn crap Telugu.
Priya always referred to the baby as she. She
didnt know why but she was convinced that she was
meant to have one.
Your Telugu, considering the circumstances, is
fabulous, Madhu said. I still dont get why Sush
didnt bother to teach it to you. Its such a waste. It is,
after all, your mother tongue.
I guess it wasnt important to her, Priya said.
Even though she had an Indian mother, Priyas con-
nection with India had been a fragile one at best. She
had visited once as a child but could hardly remember
it. There was some Indian food at home, but not a lot
and not every day. There was some Indian classical
music mixed in with Mozart and Mahler. There were
no Indian movies, really. Priyas uncle, who died years
ago, had been Sushs only relative in India besides her
parents. Priyas grandparents had not been gung-ho
about their daughter marrying a white man and had
not visited very often. Priya vaguely remembered
them and felt no connection to them.
Priyas Indian experience really began after she
met Madhu. It was a delight to her that he was Telugu
like Sush, who was also from Andhra Pradesh. He
had indulged Priya by speaking to her in Telugu,
helping her rudimentary language skills develop.
Now she spoke it half-decently, albeit with a strong
American accent.
Before meeting Madhu, Priya had always felt a
part of her was missing. She was half-Indian, but
there was nothing Indian about her. Having a com-
pletely Indian husband who helped her discover her
Indianness had made her feel complete.
They fell silent as they neared the clinic, her
prayers battling the insidious thought that maybe the
surrogate hadnt gotten pregnant this first time after
all and that they might have to try again in a few
months, if they didnt give up altogether.
Madhu parked and they got out. Priya stood by
the car, not wanting to walk in. There had been so
much bad news for so long that she was terrified to
believe that this time could be different.
Her hands started to shake.
Madhu put his arm around her and kissed her
lightly. You need to relax, he said quietly.
I couldnt stand it if she isnt pregnant, Priya said
with tears in her eyes. I...I dont know what Id do.
I want a baby, Madhu.
I know, Madhu said as Priya turned in to him.
When she lifted her head she gave him a teary
smile. Im such a shit, she said as she wiped her
tears with a tissue from her purse.
He grinned as they started to walk toward the
entrance. He leaned down slightly when they stepped
into the reception area.
I didnt use the porn, Madhu whispered into
Priyas ear. I thought of you in that blue Victorias
Secret number.
Transcript from message board www.surrogacyforyou.org
NearlyMother: Our surrogate lost our baby. This is such a
painful and horrible time. I hear about people who get preg-
nant the first time and then have a healthy pregnancy and I
cant understand why this cant happen to us. This was our
second time. I think my husband is ready to give up.
Mommy8774: I am so sorry to hear about your loss. Its ter-
rible. With our first baby everything went well. With our
second baby we had to try three different times to get
pregnant. So hang in there.
Prietysmommy: We just got through the first trimester. I can
only imagine how you feel. I was so scared. And it isnt easy
with us here in Dallas and the baby in Gujarat. Torture.
NobuNobi: My MIL and FIL are against us getting an SM and
have been so mean about the whole thing. Theyre visiting
now and make me feel so bad. I mean they see this as my
fault and that it has nothing to do with DH. I mean, DH gave
his f****** sperm, didnt he? I have some uterine problems
and thats why we had to go the SM way. This really hurts.
Our SM is doing very well. Shes nearly five months pregnant
and we talk every week; I see her belly over the webcam.
Anyone else having to deal with family disapproval?
UnoBaby: My friends have been very unsupportive. Now I
dont even tell people. Its nobodys business anyway.
One of my friends actually told me that I was exploiting
this poor Indian woman. But my SM wants to help us and
to them the money we give can help change the lives of
her children.
Trying1Time: My mother is not very supportive about this
either and also accuses me of exploiting the poor people of
India. But I agree with UnoBaby that this is a mutually benefi-
cial thing. Were waiting to hear if our surrogate is pregnant. I
have my fingers crossed.
Newbie1209: Im so glad I found this message board. You
all seem wonderful. I wish you the best, Trying1Time. And
NobuNobi, Im so sorry your in-laws are giving you a hard
time. And NearlyMother...I am so so so so sorry. I really
want to go the surrogate route. Any suggestions on how I
can convince my husband?
CantConceive1970: My husband flat-out refused, but once
I showed him pictures, testimonials, walked him through
Dr. Patels website, he was all for it. Now were working
on baby #2 and hes game for a third one if we want it. Its
a great way to have your own baby when you cant do it
yourself. Its a gift.
Mommy8774: Just be prepared with facts and proof. I
made sure I had all the information when I sat down with
my husband. Turns out I didnt need to, because he had
been investigating it himself and was afraid to bring it up,
thinking I would be against it! So it turned out really well.
I hope it turns out well for you, too.
Excerpted from A House for Happy Mothers (June 1, 2016 | Lake Union Publish-
ing) with permission of the publisher. Copyright 2016 Amulya Malladi. All
rights reserved.