“This is good, but there’s not enough of Story B.” “There’s way too much Story B. It should be all about Story A.” “Have you considered Story C?” These are all real bits of feedback my client has heard from dev editors this past month. All these editors are pros who have worked on multiple…

“And here she is: Juanita, the Inca mummy,” said the tour guide as we circled around the glass case. “Although she wasn’t mummified; she’s been frozen since her death 550 years ago.” This was our third day in Arequipa, Peru, a city surrounded by volcanoes—majestic, silent, constant. Their ice caps float like clouds in the…

Last week, I was in a conversation with Red Thread Books’ Sierra Melcher about this idea: the Author as Authority. It’s right there in the word. And yet many authors forget it. But what does it mean exactly? 1. You are the authority over your own book. Not your ghostwriter, editor, or marketing team. It’s…

A one-session deep dive into a single meaningful memory Sometimes memory calls to you. A conversation you can still hear.A room you remember exactly.A realization that changed something. It may be faint, with lots of details missing—but you still want to explore it. Maybe you feel like that memory has more to say, but aren’t…

Tuesday afternoon in 2013, Greenwich Village. A little French cafe where nothing cost less than $19. I was meeting my friend and MFA colleague Brian, so we could talk shop about our novels. “I love my novel’s story,” I said as our Americanos arrived. “I know the idea is solid. But I feel like…I’m not…

“…and that’s my memoir idea. I’m so excited,” my friend C. said. “But…how do I start?” Ah, the age-old question. How do you start writing? My friends, here is the answer: ⚔️ First, you must register with the Secret Society of Real Writers. 🧬 This requires giving a DNA sample to see whether you have…

When I first moved to Peru, I became obsessed with learning Spanish. I eavesdropped constantly. I was dying to understand, dying to know: What are people saying? About a month in, I was walking along the boardwalk in the tiny beach town where I lived. An older couple walked past me, hand in hand. The…

People sometimes ask me what it was like to live in the Amazon. I wish I could transport them there, just for a second. Or upload a snippet of virtual reality into their brain so they could experience it too. Because, like most places, it’s impossible to explain. You’d think that I, as a writer,…