Columbia Writers' Workshop II

By Michelle Gwynn Jones Regardless of the genre of a story, all writers must decide on a setting where it will unfold. Picking a setting is ...

By Amanda Simays It’s the end of the school year, the time when middle schoolers have to reflect on what they’ve learned, and it always mean...

By Kimberly Johnson Yeah. It feels good, in a seedy- Boogie - Nights (the movie) kinda way. Dirty never felt better. That’s right. I flip th...

By Laura Puccia Valtorta This afternoon I returned to South Carolina from my father’s memorial service in Watertown, New York. There was a b...

By Ginny Padgett Recently HBO aired a remake of Mildred Pierce as a mini-series, starring Kate Winslet. Many of you will recall the 1945 Jo...

By Shaun McCoy Sometimes you want to sneak up on your reader. You stay carefully understated as you suck them into your narrative, inch by i...

By Deborah Wright Yoho At an age too young, striving to please my parents, teachers and peers, I lost myself. My writing is about finding my...

By Bonnie Stanard Would you buy a book with “darling” in the title? “Beauty?” I’ve been thinking about a title for my antebellum novel for o...

By David Sennema I had no concept of the significance of the day the publishers came to me. Well, they didn’t exactly come to me…...

By Michelle Gwynn Jones Whether it is a desire to learn how to sail or teaching Messapian, subplots add depth to your characters and layers ...

By Monet M. Jones I think POV is a lot of BS. Let me clarify that statement. I think strict adherence to a particular Point of View when wri...

Meet a New Writer SHAUN McCOY I was born in Scripts Hospital in San Diego California. I met the love of my life in Poway at the age of thre...

By Shaun McCoy Stop. You've seen this before. It's worse than a stereotype. You could even call it a trope (the dirtiest of all wo...

By Amanda Simays Recently at the middle school where I work, my fellow volunteers and I started after-school clubs — Hip Hop Aerobics, Photo...

By Kimberly Johnson “The Bouquet residence. The lady of the house speaking!” There’s a lot of ha-ha packed into that line. And Hyacinth Bu...

By Laura P. Valtorta As I begin writing a sequel to Carmen’s Universe – my novel about the future – I contemplate the pathway from idea to ...

By Alex Raley I recently made a trip with folks who kept referring to me as “sir.” Most of the people were well past fifty years. This was a...

By Deborah Wright Yoho When I last read a selection at our writers' workshop, someone remarked, "How can you remember all these det...

By Suzanne Roberts I’ve collected some ideas in my attempts to make my writing more natural and clear, so that the reader can see and feel w...

By Monet M. Jones One of my favorite artists performed one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. Many years ago, Carly Simon sang: “That’s t...