I’m married to James Not-the-Movie-Director Cameron. While being married to a movie director would certainly have its advantages for a writer who naturally sees the cinematic potential for her novel, being married to James Not-the-Movie-Director Cameron has its own rewards—a website, for example. First, I should say that my husband’s middle name is really Stuart.…

Meeting other writers is one of the pleasures of attending writing conferences. The pleasure is increased when those meetings, whether in-person or on-line, continue long after the conference ends. One of the first writing workshops I attended was the Napa Valley Writers Conference in 2000. Participants are advised to have a car since lodging is…

A man in a pet store asks, “How much for the Chihuahua?” The next line is It whines in the shoebox-sized carrier under his arm as he returns to the Volvo. I think this is beautifully efficient writing by Alma Garcia, one of the members of my writing group. We don’t need to see the…

I met Alma Johnson in a fiction workshop in the early 90s. She was the star of the class – not just because of her writing talent or her ability to examine a story and make insightful and precise observations on the plausibility of its premise and structure, on whether the thing had muscle. She…