Reviews – A Game Of Give And Take

    Originally published in Women Writers, Women’s Books, March 28, 2015 We all know how much the world of publishing has changed in the last few years. The gatekeepers have been swept away by self-publishing. Anyone can write a book, and offer it for sale on Amazon. And anyone can write a review and […]

Writing is Hard Work. So is Reviewing

    I hear a lot about bad writing these days.  Bad writing is what the surge in self-publishing has created.  Without gatekeepers, anyone can be a published author; anyone can throw his hat in the ring alongside Hemingway and Virginia Woolf.  Anyone can publish.  I won’t get into the trouble that self-publishing can cause […]

The Honest Writer: Is a self-published book as worthy as a traditionally published one?

  Recently, author Jonathan Franzen told The Guardian just what he thought of Amazon and what it’s done to both writers and book publishing.  Suffice it to say, he wasn’t flattering.  Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, is “decimating literary culture in favor of the yakkers and tweeters and braggers.”  Serious writers are being undermined, Franzen says.  […]

Spend and Spend Well

When I started writing and sending out my stories for consideration, they went in envelopes that took a lot of stamps. Then journals accepted submissions by email, and I save a lot of money, even when a small reading fee was charged. The traditional print journals, usually associated with an English department somewhere, often pay […]