Guest Bloggers

On Top Of Your Game

My dear friend, Nancy Julien Kopp blogs at Writer Granny’s World by Nancy Julien Kopp. Last year, Nancy posted: In mid-November, I posted a review of The Write Spot: Possibilities.  The anthology consists of stories, essays, and poems by several writers. At the end of each offering is a prompt that might have inspired what they wrote and also a paragraph or two of advice for writers. Ahhh, advice. It can be given, but is it always accepted? Not by a longshot. Sometimes, we read the advice of other writers with a shield in front of us. The attitude can be Go ahead, teach me something I don’t already know. At other times, we’re wide open to any advice given. We want to soak it up like water in a sponge.  I’ve been skimming through the book again looking at the advice the writers offered. I consider it a gift to us,…

Guest Bloggers

Lara Zielin: The World Needs Your Stories

Today’s Guest Post spotlight shines on Lara Zielin. When I first read her post (below), my hand went to my chest. I recognized those feelings. I felt those feelings. Last summer I experienced a similar situation that Lara describes. The difference though, is that while giving my presentation, I knew I was “off” and I couldn’t get back “on.” I felt like a runaway train took off with me barely hanging onto the caboose. I so wanted to do a great job. Someone recommended me to this group as a presenter. I wanted to make her proud. At the end, I was afraid I embarrassed her and I certainly embarrassed myself. And when I read what happened to Lara, I took a deep breath. Lara wrote: Several years ago, a colleague and I gave a presentation to the board of a national museum. In the moment, the presentation felt amazing….

Guest Bloggers

Understanding 4 C’s: Being a Successful Author

Guest Blogger Joan Gelfand writes: I never set out to write a novel. I mean, really? I had cut my literary teeth on Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Kurt Vonnegut, Gunter Grass and Wallace Stegner. I was satisfied being a poet, known to my local community. Writing a novel seemed terribly pretentious, a misguided idea. No. I did not start out to write a novel. I started out with a story that, after two years, and much encouragement from my writing instructor, grew into three hundred pages. I had written my first novel without planning to do so.  It was with that first novel that I began to understand that becoming a successful writer wasn’t just about writing. It was several years after my first attempt to find a publisher for that first novel that I understood the business of writing. I learned that the letter I got…