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When my youngest of three children started kindergarten, I returned to teaching English at the community college after a ten-year hiatus. I became so disillusioned with problems in the classroom (students texting under desktops and aggressively asking me to alter their grades), I decided instead to teach adults who were in love with writing. I applied to teach at a writing retreat in the desert that I would end up returning to for three amazing retreats. (A Room of Her Own Foundation has since moved to online offerings.) Because I was still raising children, everything I pitched had to be joyful, stress-free, and cost my family minimal outlay. Though poetry remains my first love, by the third retreat, I landed on a “tangential love” for an opportunity that might provide an income stream on the side. Back in college when my love-life imploded, I discovered the tarot, a tool for looking at aspects of our lives we don’t understand. A tarot deck is like a deck of playing cards, only there are 78 cards comprised of 22 soul cards (The Fool or The Lovers), 16 people cards (Kings and Queens modern deck-makers give contemporary names), and 40 “daily life” cards (challenges More

I received an email from someone with CAPS and exclamation points about a FundsforWriters sponsor charging for her services. The promotion promised the customer would attend and walk away with a pitchable submission. The reader was upset the promoter neglected to say in that sentence you had to pay $20 per month for the experience. (For clarity, the promotion did state the monthly fee several sentences down.) Bottom line, she was against the fee. Few services and products are free. Few services and products should even be free. Most things are worth what you pay for them. So many writers want to learn from those who have gone before them, but are not too eager to pay for the services. If you don’t want to work for free, why should anyone else? “How do I find a quality editor that won’t charge much?” Do you really want an editor that doesn’t charge much? A good editor earns a decent living because they are good and in demand. Wouldn’t that be who you’d like to guide your work? “How do I find free books on how to be a writer?” Just take a moment and reread that line. Basically, they are More

An indispensable tool, the back-of-the-book index enables nonfiction readers to find information efficiently and quickly. Writing those indexes offers another income opportunity for freelancers. As a lover of nonfiction, I decided to add indexing to my freelance writing and copy-editing business. What better way to spend my time than going through a biography or how-to book and collecting and alphabetizing key words, I thought. Couldn’t be easier. Wrong! After engaging in coursework and reading books such as Nan Badgett’s The Accidental Indexer and Nancy Mulvany’s Indexing Books, I discovered that indexing is a unique skill set requiring the ability to spot themes, organize details into related sets and subsets, and determine when a detail warrants inclusion or is a passing mention and not needed. That said, freelance indexing is a challenge that appeals to many freelancers. Some indexers are generalists. However, indexing is often sourced out to writers who have expertise in specific fields such as technology, medicine, art, law, or even children’s nonfiction books. Benefits and Challenges of Freelance Indexing  Job availability is, of course, the main benefit. Numerous nonfiction books are published each year, and those books need indexes. Other media use indexes as well: professional journals, newspapers, legal documents, corporate More

I am so tired of book banning being designated a political tool. A Republican or Democratic thing. And I wish book banning wasn’t painted with such a broad brush, as if banning a book applies to every venue across the nation, or in many cases, across a state. Book banning is a phrase now used to incite, not solve a problem. People are too caught up in pointing fingers and placing blame than anything else. The reality, as usual, lies in the middle. There are levels of book banning, if you want to use that term, but in an attempt to remove the political flavor, lets call it book selection. That’s all it is, book selection, and libraries have been “selecting” which books to stock their shelves with since the beginning of libraries. Just like parents have been selective on what they wanted their children to read. A parent is fully entitled to select (and withhold) certain books for their children. They do not have the say so of what goes in a library that has the responsibility of meeting the needs of all. That said, however, a school librarian is trained to stock shelves with age-proper books. That’s not More

Winning a writing contest can be an affirmation that a writer is talented, but to those that write, enter, and lose, losing can be disheartening and make a writer question their ability and talent. Surprisingly, however, a losing entry can be a boost to your writing income, especially if you challenge yourself to enter contests that force you to write outside the box and look for publishing homes that are just as eclectic. Many writers seek out the same type of competitions, suitable for the genres in which they’re most comfortable writing. But with no win, you’re left with yet another piece without a home. That’s why it’s a good idea to search for contests that ask for unique entries. You might struggle to write on an unfamiliar topic, but, in the end, you’ll have something new to submit to publishers/sites you never knew existed. I entered several contests last year and achieved one honorable mention, and that was on a piece that was way out of my comfort zone, but it opened the door to another type of writing I might never have tried. Since I started stretching my writing muscles, I’ve written about ancient Egypt, deceased literary characters, More

I’ve had two inquiries of late about how to pitch a column for a newspaper. Everyone wants to know the right way to approach an editor, and I offered several suggestions. 1) Offer a piece to the paper, stroking them that you felt this piece fit them exactly, and you wanted to contribute to your community in offering its contents. The next time, however, offer something just as good if not better, commenting that you’d like to entertain payment of a given amount. Be sure to give a brief bio that strongly shows your experience or expertise. 2) Become familiar with the editor. That might entail writing frequent letters to the editor that show promise, research, and quality style, without all the ranting and rancor most letters contain. Then suggest a series of articles, promising the same professionalism you demonstrated in your letters. 3) Study that paper hard. See what they like. Understand the readership. Propose a two- to three-part story that hits the sweet spot of the community. These newspapers are the heartbeat of their areas, town, city, region. Give them something they cannot refuse. Ask for a reasonable price for it, after assuring them you are the best More

I began my full-time writing career a few months before having my baby, and that new parental perspective helped provide the inspiration for many articles. I write nonfiction in the form of reported articles on everything from health to travel, but also more personal opinion pieces where I share my view on the world. As pregnancy, childbirth and new motherhood are intense experiences, they can add new layers to writing and inspire fresh ideas. Parenthood is a brand new life chapter which can alert you to themes or topics you hadn’t considered before. Even from early on in pregnancy, new idea avenues just pop up. But where does parenthood fall in terms of genre? Is it health, society, politics, general parenting, food (weaning tips), drink (non-alcoholic cocktails), travel, a photo essay, opinion, career, entertainment, environment or another lifestyle-based niche? I found I could relate almost anything back to parenting as it is a subject that permeates all aspects of life. The topic works across all types of publications and even has international appeal. Parenthood is also a niche within itself as not everyone is a parent, or has a baby or young child. It can be a less crowded field More

Publishers are struggling to get ahead of AI, artificial intelligence, and its impact on what is being published and by whom. They want to continue publishing to be done BY WHOM not BY WHAT. I just ran across this post from Candlemark & Gleam, a publisher of speculative fiction, which gives you an idea of what publishers are up against: Important note about submissions: as of March 23, 2023, Candlemark & Gleam is closed to submissions by authors not already published by the press or not accompanied by a recommendation from a trusted colleague. This has come about because there are many amazing works in the queue, but also due to the problems created by ChatGPT. We’ll announce when we’re open again to unsolicited submissions by authors new to us. We realize that this creates a terrible situation for new writers, and will be looking for longer-term solutions. Publishers do not want AI material. A lot of people (I purposely avoid the use of the word WRITERS) are using AI to create scenes, chapters, and entire books with AI, then claim the work as totally their own when it is not. Many publishers are calling AI plagiarism, and the courts are More

“Hi, I’m Rod, where are you from?” Ok, I admit, it sounds like a cheesy one-liner, but seriously, where are you from? As authors, we are constantly seeking the next idea, the idea that might turn into a sellable book or article, the idea that just may put our names on the lips of readers and book sellers. I stumbled onto my recently published book idea quite by accident – although the idea lay dormant in my brain since childhood – and it forced me to realize that every writer had a chance in a genre that we never think about. I was born in Tampa, Florida. Back in 1960, before I was born, there was a civil rights sit-in at a local Woolworth’s store. Like incidents happened during the same time by young African Americans in high schools all over the South. Here in Tampa, those with knowledge of the city’s civil rights past knew about this historical event, but the newer generation have no idea of the plight their grandparents regularly faced. Right in the middle of downtown, the old Woolworth’s building is sitting there, vacant, dilapidated and abandoned, but on the corner stands a historical marker sharing More

In my research for FundsforWriters, I was studying contests and grants. I don’t often talk about the winners of these funds because that would take twice the size of the newsletter that’s already pretty long, but a particular one had shown a snipper of one of the winners, and it drew me in. I wound up reading all of the finalists’ work for the Wild Atlantic Writers prize, and I was quite entertained. When counseling folks on how to apply for a grant, I emphasize the need to read the grant applications of the previous winners. Most grant providers will allow you to see them. State commissions and councils are required to let you see them. Other grant providers may not, but you can at least see the writing that resulted from many of the finalists. The same applies to contests. Read the pieces that previously won. Nothing gives you a better flavor of what a contest seeks than what managed to snare the judges before. I entered a contest two years ago with one of my opening chapters, the requirement, and did not win, but upon reading the finalists’ submissions, I realized why. The judge(s) preferred literary fiction. I write mystery. More