Online Writing & Editing Courses now Live!

Who says conversations about words and language use have to be dull? Based on my book, Get a Grip on Your Grammar: 250 Writing and Editing Reminders for the Curious or Confused, my Grammartopia® program is designed for student, professional, or creative writing audiences who want to elevate their writing skills and be entertained in the process.
As an author, frequent workshop leader, and independent fiction editor, I receive questions from writers all the time. In this video, I tackle 10 big ideas that commonly come up, including: What is my biggest advice for fiction writers? When is a book “done”? What does a writer-editor relationship look like? What are the pros and cons of different publishing routes? And more …
My Ukrainian roots are at the heart of The Baba Yaga Mask, and this powerful discussion about Ukrainian folk art and family stories was shaped in the style of my “Story Stop Tour” events. Spotlighting Ukrainian artists from across the U.S., our conversation flowed from pysanky to emboidery to what the world should know about Ukraine and Ukrainians right now.

 Writing Tips

Word choice matters. How you build your sentence with punctuation is about more than just decorating with ink squiggle confetti. We owe it to ourselves and to everyone who sees our written words to get it right. All right?

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Authors on Editing Interviews

In celebration of the publication of Get a Grip on your Grammar: 250 Writing and Editing Reminders for the Curious or Confused (Career Press, 2017), I launched a blog interview series with talented writers working across multiple genres and forms, from fiction to nonfiction to poetry to business writing to journalism and more. No matter what you write, you’ll learn a lot from their insights on their editing processes.

Why do we write?

There are so many answers to that question. In my opening address of the James River Writers Conference in 2010
in Richmond, Virginia, I had the chance to give mine.
What’s your answer? I’d love to hear all about it.
Contact me today.