Copy of GETTING YOUR BOOK TO AN AGENT
Many writers out there wonder how, in the hell, can they get their book into the worthy and capable hands of a literary agent. Well, it’s a process. For one thing, I’ll be blunt: If you have a connection of any kind, use it. If you can nail down a referral, that will help big time. But assuming that’s not an option, and you have to go in ‘cold,’ here’s how you do it. First off, start by writing the book all the way through. You’d be amazed how many agents tell me that writers


THE WRITER/EDITOR RELATIONSHIP: PATIENCE
I’d say 95 percent of the clients I work with on book editing projects are filled with impatience. As a writer as well as a book editor, I of course understand this feeling perfectly. It makes sense. For the most part, developing writers approach me with a first or second or third draft, or even sometimes a memoir or novel they’ve worked on for years, and they have a specific plan for how they want that project to go. The problems with this approach are many-fold. For one thi


The Bend (auto-fiction about freight train hoppin...)
### Photo by Alex Geerts on Unsplash The Bend My body ripped up at a ninety-degree angle, my eyes popping open, hearing what sounded like a freight train. Brian was asleep, his rucksack propping his head up like some 1930s Depression-era freight train hopper. If Dorthea Lange were here, she’d have gotten a good photograph. The train whistle throbbed, that loud, wheedling wail. How could Brian sleep through this? Because he was used to it. He’d been doing this for fifteen year


JOE ROGAN and MATT WALSH
A few things up front. First, I’m more or less neutral on Joe Rogan. If you don’t know who Joe Rogan is: Where have you been living for the past decade? He is a mega-popular podcaster, comedian, TV personality, actor, fitness guru of sorts. He has something close to 13 million subscribers, and over 2 billion views. He hosts The Joe Rogan Experience. Of course I’ve heard the hubbub about Rogan for years now; on the left he is a right-wing fascist who is in the old-school Gen-X