This book will help you plot like a pro, master the art of suspense like Poe, craft captivating dialogue like Twain and - most crucially - get your short stories published. How to Write Short Stories and Get Them Published is the essential guide to writing short fiction. It takes the aspiring writer from their initial idea through to potential outlets for publication and pitching proposals to publishers. Along the journey this guide considers the most important aspects of creative writing, such as character, plot, point of view, description and dialogue. All of these areas are illustrated with examples of classic fiction, and accompanied by exercises that will help every writer hone their natural skill and talent into the ability to craft compelling short stories.

This book will help you plot like a pro, master the art of suspense like Poe, craft captivating dialogue like Twain and - most crucially - get your short stories published. How to Write Short Stories and Get Them Published is the essential guide to writing short fiction. It takes the aspiring writer from their initial idea through to potential outlets for publication and pitching proposals to publishers. Along the journey this guide considers the most important aspects of creative writing, such as character, plot, point of view, description and dialogue. All of these areas are illustrated with examples of classic fiction, and accompanied by exercises that will help every writer hone their natural skill and talent into the ability to craft compelling short stories.

Write It Short, Sell It Now Short stories and personal essays have never been hotter--or more crucial for a successful writing career. Earning bylines in magazines and literary journals is a terrific way to get noticed and earn future opportunities in both short- and long-form writing. Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays capitalizes on the popularity of these genres by instructing on the two key steps to publishing short works: crafting excellent pieces and successfully submitting them. You'll learn how to: • Develop different craft elements--including point of view, character, dialogue, scene writing, and more--specifically for short stories and essays. • Recognize the qualities of excellent short works, using examples from recently published stories and essays in major journals. • Understand the business of writing short, from categorizing your work and meeting submission guidelines to networking and submitting to writing contests. • Master the five-step process for submitting and selling like a pro. Featuring advice and examples from a multitude of published authors, Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays is a must-have for any writer's bookshelf.

Distilled from decades of teaching and practice, 'Creating Short Fiction' offers no-nonsense advise on structure, pacing, dialogue, getting ideas, and much more.

In her first memoir, award-winning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature: a letter from a writer to like-minded readers. “A meditation on the fact that literature itself lives and gives life.”—Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead “What a long way it is from one life to another, yet why write if not for that distance?” Startlingly original and shining with quiet wisdom, this is a luminous account of a life lived with books. Written over two years while the author battled suicidal depression, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life is a painful and yet richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living. Yiyun Li grew up in China and has spent her adult life as an immigrant in a country not her own. She has been a scientist, an author, a mother, a daughter—and through it all she has been sustained by a profound connection with the writers and books she loves. From William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield to Søren Kierkegaard and Philip Larkin, Dear Friend is a journey through the deepest themes that bind these writers together. Interweaving personal experiences with a wide-ranging homage to her most cherished literary influences, Yiyun Li confronts the two most essential questions of her identity: Why write? And why live? Praise for Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life “Li has stared in the face of much that is beautiful and ugly and treacherous and illuminating—and from her experience she has produced a nourishing exploration of the will to live willfully.”—The Washington Post “Li’s transformation into a writer . . . is nothing short of astonishing.’”—The New York Times Book Review “An arrestingly lucid, intellectually vital series of contemplations on art, identity, and depression.”—The Boston Globe “Li is an exemplary storyteller and this account of her journey back to equilibrium, assisted by her closest companion, literature, is as powerful as any of her award-winning fiction, with the dark fixture of her Beijing past at its centre.”—Financial Times “Every writer is a reader first, and Dear Friend is Li’s haunted, luminous love letter to the words that shaped her. . . . Her own prose is both lovely and opaque, fitfully illuminating a radiant landscape of the personal and profound.”—Entertainment Weekly “Yiyun Li’s prose is lean and intense, and her ideas about books and writing are wholly original.”—San Francisco Chronicle

With growing academic responsibilities, family commitments, and inboxes, scholars are struggling to fulfill their writing goals. A finished book—or even steady journal articles—may seem like an impossible dream. But, as Joli Jensen proves, it really is possible to write happily and productively in academe. Jensen begins by busting the myth that universities are supportive writing environments. She points out that academia, an arena dedicated to scholarship, offers pressures that actually prevent scholarly writing. She shows how to acknowledge these less-than-ideal conditions, and how to keep these circumstances from draining writing time and energy. Jensen introduces tools and techniques that encourage frequent, low-stress writing. She points out common ways writers stall and offers workarounds that maintain productivity. Her focus is not on content, but on how to overcome whatever stands in the way of academic writing. Write No Matter What draws on popular and scholarly insights into the writing process and stems from Jensen’s experience designing and directing a faculty writing program. With more than three decades as an academic writer, Jensen knows what really helps and hinders the scholarly writing process for scholars in the humanities, social sciences,and sciences. Cut down the academic sword of Damocles, Jensen advises. Learn how to write often and effectively, without pressure or shame. With her encouragement, writers of all levels will find ways to create the writing support they need and deserve.