Taught By Kevin J. Anderson… This is the first of its kind at any university and I wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention because it is so cool!! And it would be so much fun to do. And the learning would be amazing. And even better, it is something most of us could manage. Two weeks in colorado, then the rest of the year online, then two more weeks back in colorado to finish up. And the cost for a master degree is just about as cheap as it comes. A MA grad program in publishing. How flipping amazing. ——– Kevin said this about the program he created and…

Much Harder to Say Than Do… But this week at the Writers of the Future I heard a lot of fantastic stories about success because the writer just kept pounding the markets. I remember that when I started out. From 1974 until 1982, stories out, no sales. And then I started following Heinlein’s Rules and sales started. First year I sold six short stories. (One to Writers of the Future.) But I wrote 44 and had them all in the mail. All the time. If a manuscript was rejected, I sent it back out often within hours. So rejection was a way of life. I put all the rejections in…

Talking Tomorrow Morning Early… To the winners of Writers of the Future. Looks like a great group of writers. Today, after I got in, I got to sit beside Orson Scott Card and listen to Eric Flint talk, then Larry Niven talked about the great writers of science fiction. Tim Powers was there as well and then we went for a book signing where Rob Sawyer, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Keven J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Doug Beason, Jody Lyn Nye, and Dave Wolverton joined in. Had a great dinner with Jody Lyn Nye and Eric Flint, and a great conversation with Kevin J. Anderson before going to get my tux for…

Got Some Good Questions Today… So let me try to answer them quickly tonight. — First of all, if you are taking another workshop such as the short story workshop, those stories would count. If you are coming to the Anthology workshop, or one of Kris’s Vegas craft workshops, those stories you write for the workshop would count. Just write one story per week and turn them in to me (or Kris, if in one of her workshops.) — Yes, this challenge will go longer than 52 weeks if writers are still writing. The first week to start is April 14th, when the first prompt will appear. And first deadline…

A New Writing Challenge… For the last few years I have done quarterly challenges that many people have enjoyed. And a lot of novels or stories have come out of those challenges that I enjoyed reading. So a new challenge, with a brand new form. One a little saner and a little crazier in the same breath. And again, the fee goes toward two workshop fees. Kris and I have been talking about this one for a while. Here are the basics… Every week, on Teachable, a new story prompt will appear. That prompt will be a video prompt that will be short, maybe with a writing tip with it,…

By John D. MacDonald… It was the last Travis McGee novel, published a year before MacDonald’s death in 1986. I think I have read it six or seven times now over the years, always taken in by how MacDonald did Travis. I have typed in so many parts of those books, studying the style, the simpleness of it, yet how complex and clear he wrote. At some point I will try a character like Travis. Someday. In the meantime, I practice a lot of what MacDonald did on my Cold Poker Gang series. And speaking of that, the new Cold Poker Gang series book is nearing an end, I hope.…