Columbia Writers' Workshop II

By Len Lawson Writing is hard. You first have to find time to write in your busy schedule, and when you do have time, you have to be i...

Structure in Storytelling By Chris Mathews For some of us, writing good sentences is not a challenge. We can do that. We write wit...

  By Ginny Padgett For those of you who are unfamiliar with our workshop’s origin, we are a chapter of South Carolina Writers’ Wor...

These are answers from members of our workshop to the question, “Why do you write?”   Writing began as a way t o defuse overpowering e...

By Kimberly Johnson Often glib and sometimes risqué, but she made a good point. That’s how I define Dear Abby ’s advice style. Str...

By Len Lawson     It is a crucial benefit for writers to discover the authors who have had the most significant influence on their work....

By Bonnie Stanard Anachronisms are the bane of serious historical fiction writers. If we rack up too many, our validity as researchers ...

At a recent workshop, our members were asked what would be their best advice to a new writer. Here are three selections. You can’t wai...

By Mike Long Until recently I’ve steadfastly resisted giving any of my books away.   Sure, I sent copies to folks for reviews (with m...

By Fred Fields "If you want to sell books and make money, 'how to' sells better than fiction, at least until you're f...

By Michelle Gwynn Jones When it comes to character development, I have no problem coming up with the main character and the secon...

By Laura P. Valtorta Art begets art. Painting has intercourse with music and produces poetry. Playwriting marries the Philharmonic and t...

By Alex Raley Often people, even in our writer’s group, say they don’t understand poetry, or they know nothing about poetry. How can t...

By Chris Mathews Conflict is the ticking time bomb in riveting writing.  We may not all be writers, but we are all amateur psychologis...

Meet a New Columbia II Blogger LEN LAWSON               Len Lawson first began his writing career by winning 3 rd place in a mi...

By Len Lawson After high school and college, not many of us have the desire to read classic novels again or anything associated with c...

By Laura P. Valtorta The backyard birds help me to write – especially the cardinals and house wrens (those brown birds that look as th...

By Kimberly Johnson Dear Classified Ads Manager at the Daily Bugle: My television script is going to be the next big thing, you kn...

DEAN CROKE Dean and sister, Sharon Dean’s adventuresome spirit has led him from stints in the Caribbean, where he spent nine ye...

By Dean Croke "Get into the flow," as Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi, author of  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , woul...