A colleague of mine, a self-employed commercial artist and science fiction writer I will call “Jim,” recently declared, “If you’re a man getting close to your 50s and you haven’t done something yet, don’t say you’re doing to do it someday because you probably won’t.” Jim was criticizing another guy in the same industry, who… Continue reading Being a Creative Writer in an Age of Anxiety
Category: Publishing Industry
Dirty Realist Protests Too Much
Read my latest on Splice Today, a response to Alex Perez's piece on the not-so-lost art of "dirty realism": https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/dirty-realist-protests-too-much
Dominance and Submissions
Let's say you've labored long in the fields of creative writing and the People Who Know (or maybe just the people who've noticed) have appreciated your talent. Some have appreciated it loudly and publicly, some quietly to friends in ways that eventually come back to you, some through amazing feats of jealousy, and others through… Continue reading Dominance and Submissions
The Inner Work of Being a Writer
The transition from dilettante to serious artist is always indistinct. As with any art form, one becomes what one does. One becomes a writer by saying, “I’m a writer” and then writing. I suppose one becomes “serious” after demonstrating or announcing one’s seriousness at some later date. But isn’t it a little absurd to say,… Continue reading The Inner Work of Being a Writer
Fiction Writing Course
Friends, I'm offering a short fiction writing course (actually three courses in one), designed to take someone from the basics of story writing all the way through the publication process. If this is something you're interested in, take a look at the link below. https://writingexpedition.com/fiction-writing-instruction/
What if it’s all just pornography?
I once drove a forklift in a magazine distribution warehouse for a living and got to know romance, action adventure, and western paperbacks of the 1980s and 90s fairly well, since we handled a high volume of grocery store book sales. I read the cast-offs that got damaged in the sorting process on my breaks. … Continue reading What if it’s all just pornography?
Living the Dream
News this good doesn't arrive every day. My third collection of stories, Living the Dream, just got accepted by Terror House for publication in 2021. I will be updating my websites when I have more information. Thanks to everyone for following my writing. It matters. Michael
Magazine Rejections and Learning to Love the Hate
Read my new piece on Splice Today: https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/magazine-rejections-and-learning-to-love-the-hate
Writing the Hard Thing
If I could tell you the number of stories and novels I’ve begun writing and not finished, we’d be here too long. But “not finished” doesn’t mean “discarded.” It means what it says. The difficulty comes when I’ve convinced myself that I’m one sort of writer (the consistent, cheerfully productive kind) as opposed the other,… Continue reading Writing the Hard Thing
Solving climate change one slick magazine at a time.
Read my latest in Splice Today: https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/jonathan-franzen-can-t-solve-climate-change-for-anyone-who-matters
The Writing Expedition 