Table of contents for May/June 2026 in Writer's Digest

“Here is a lesson I’m trying to share with myself these days. Persist. Be irrational in your persistence. Rejection, in its various forms, is a guaranteed companion along the writer’s journey. (A somewhat harsh companion I don’t remember inviting, by the way.) Drafts will dwindle in desktop purgatory. Manuscripts will melt into mediocrity. Ideas will hit the page and then hit a wall. But persist. Be stubborn in your persistence. Keep writing. And rewriting. And rewriting. Oh, and I guess, at some point, try to get a good night’s sleep.”—Jon-Erik Lappano, author of The Language of Birds TinyURL.com/ynd3sz53 “End a writing session mid-scene or even mid-paragraph. It gives you something to return to in your next writing session, so you aren’t starting from a blank page. This is especially useful…

Writers and editors go hand-in-hand in traditional publishing. Their work feeds off each other, and typically, both are more successful when they work closely together. So, for this issue about how to write like a pro, in which we aim to demystify writing and publishing for authors who wish to make a career out of their creative endeavors, WD spoke with mother and daughter, Wanda M. Morris and Alexandra Hightower, who have both made successful careers in publishing, about how they got started, what helped them find that success, and what they’ve learned about the industry from each other. Wanda M. Morris is the award-winning author of three novels: All Her Little Secrets, which was named one of the Best Books of 2021 by Hudson Booksellers; Anywhere You Run, named…

BACK TO BASICS Even if you’re at the top of the bestseller lists, it’s important that you never stop being a student of your craft. Getting back to basics can be an easy way to rein-vigorate your writing, learn new skills, and tap into creativity. Try some of these exercises to lean into that learning mindset. Character Development We generally think about our characters through backstory, tropes (grumpy/sunshine romance, anyone?), and how our plot influences their behavior. But what about physicality? Twirling their hair, chewing on pencils, nervous laughter—all of this deepens your understanding of your characters. Write a list of physical traits and behaviors of a character. Then, write a scene where they are doing something mundane (driving to work, washing dishes) and weave in these physical details. Setting…

There was a time when starting a sentence with And, But, or So felt like breaking the law. And then you opened nearly any published book and spotted it right away: writers starting sentences with And, But, and So like it was the most natural move in the world. No red pen, no grammar jail. Just clean, confident writing. So, what’s the real story here? WHY TEACHERS PUSHED THIS “RULE” A page where every other line starts with And or But can look sloppy on a test or essay, especially when a writer leans on them as automatic throat-clearing. So teachers handed down a simple guideline: Keep conjunctions in the middle of a sentence. WHAT AND, BUT, AND SO REALLY DO Each of these words does a slightly different job.…

Alicia Brooks, president of Alicia Brooks Literary Agency, grew up in Los Angeles. She studied English and philosophy at Wellesley College and has a master’s degree from Columbia University. A longtime industry veteran with more than 25 years of publishing experience, Brooks first served as an editorial assistant at Penguin USA (Dutton/Plume). As an assistant editor at Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, she worked with Margaret Atwood, Pat Conroy, and Ian McEwan. She then edited more than 40 hardcover titles at Picador/St. Martin’s Press. In 2019, Brooks joined the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency as a literary agent. She founded the Alicia Brooks Literary Agency in 2025. “I knew I wanted a publishing career from the age of 18,” Brooks says. “I love working behind the scenes to champion writers and collaborate…

The first time I remember declaring that I aspired to become a writer, I also mentioned that I’d especially love the chance to write for National Geographic someday. I was a teen at the time, simply sharing a hope with a friend. In hindsight, though, this was a significant moment. After all, I was giving voice to a wish I’d probably been kicking around in my mind for ages. So, when I finally landed a story assignment for that sought-after outlet over 20 years later and spotted my byline sitting atop the published article, it was an absolute dream come true. Following the thrill of crossing this item off my bucket list, however, a troubling thought began to settle in. How in the world did it take me over two…

Several years ago, we were in New York, teaching at the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference. One evening over dinner, our conversation turned to how we had landed speaking gigs, the tactics we had used to negotiate our agreements, and the best—and the worst—practices we had seen when it came to engaging audiences. By the time dessert arrived, we realized we had more than just a shared set of stories. We had the foundation for a book. That effort produced From Page to Platform: How to Succeed as an Author Speaker, our first co-authored nonfiction book. We realized we had stumbled upon a professional strategy worth sharing with other authors: co-authoring nonfiction as a business choice that can elevate your author career. The result of that realization was another joint project:…

THE CHALLENGE: Write the first line of a story based on the prompt below. You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story. CONTEST #142 142 TO ENTER: Email your entry to yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com with the subject line “Your Story 142.” Entries must be pasted directly into the body of the email; attachments will not be opened. Include your name and mailing address. Entries without a name or mailing address will be disqualified. NOTE: WD editors select the top 12 entries and post them on our website WritersDigest.com/your-story-competition). Join us online in late June, when readers will vote for their favorite to help rank the top 10 winners! Follow @WritersDigest on Instagram for Your Story updates. The winner will be published in a future issue of Writer’s Digest.…

One of the most important professional skills an author can develop is the ability to craft an enticing elevator pitch for their book. After all, a strong pitch is used by authors to hook agents, used by agents to hook publishers, used by publishers to hook book buyers, and used by book buyers to hook readers. That’s why I ask authors to share elevator pitches in my author spotlight series on WritersDigest.com. Here I’ve highlighted 20 elevator pitches for recently published books in a variety of genres. Use them as inspiration to write effective elevator pitches for your own books. HISTORICAL FICTION Everything Lost Returns by Sarah Domet: “Everything Lost Returns is set in Cincinnati in 1910 and 1986—the last two times Halley’s Comet was visible—and follows two characters: Opal…

Writing a picture book can look deceptively simple. But storytelling for young children is more than just putting down a few words on the page, like cutting hair is more than just picking up a pair of shears and hacking away. I learned that myself back in college. I had scissors, a mirror, and a vision (shorter in the back, longer in the front). How hard could be it? Answer: a lot harder than I thought. A similar lesson holds true for creating picture books. Before you sit down at your computer and start typing, take time to set yourself up for success. Even for the pros, there are steps to follow, and honing your craft takes time. A prolific picture book author with whom I work often takes a…

NEW JERSEY WRITER’S DIGEST ANNUAL CONFERENCE, presented by Writer’s Digest—REGISTRATION is open! July 23–25, 2026 at The Heldrich, New Brunswick, N.J. The Writer’s Digest Annual Conference offers everything you need to advance your writing creatively and professionally. Gain invaluable tips to improve your craft, explore publishing options, and learn how to establish a sustainable career—all while being inspired by successful authors and your fellow attendees. Brought to you by Writer’s Digest, the experts at nurturing and developing writers at every stage of their career for more than 100 years. Programming you won’t want to miss! Pre-conference workshop: Build the Audience That Sells Books with Jessica Berg and Paula Rizzo. Register as a standalone or add it onto your Basic Conference registration. Inspiring Keynote plus 33 instructional sessions. Agent 1:1 appointments. Add a…

Looking back, I’ve always tried to figure out what it means to “write like a pro.” When I was a child, if I suspected something was a habit of an author, I would emulate it. I had a filing cabinet (it was metal but had a faux woodgrain pattern—I thought it was the height of sophis-tication) in my unicorn bedroom where I kept story ideas, some of which I kindly mailed to Baby-Sitter’s Club author Ann M. Martin in case she needed them (you’re welcome). As I got older, I filled journal after journal because the writers I read also kept journals, and I started attending events at book-stores and at various nearby universities to see what habits I could pick up. But today, when talking to professional writers, literary…

HOW TO READ YOUR WORK ALOUD: A 10-POINT LIST 1. Speak directly into the microphone. If you’re funny, tell a joke. If a psychic from Pittsburgh has ever warned you that no one gets your jokes and you are, in fact, not funny at all, open with a riveting image or a sucker punch. If all else fails, read your work as a numbered list. 2. Forget the talent show at the sleep-away camp for underprivileged kids on the shores of Lake Ontario. Forget how you befriended the toughest girls before the bus left the city, the three of you, all chub and sass and puckered lip, rolling your eyes while your sister climbed trees and made boondoggles in the craft barn. Forget how you bragged you could hula and…

One thing I love about microfiction is that it allows you to experiment in ways you wouldn’t be able to if your stories were longer. This is one of the key reasons I use microfiction in my creative writing classes. Not only can students try out unusual ideas, points of view, styles, tones, and structures with far less stress (or opposition), they can also gain an even stronger understanding of grammar and mechanical tools that make for good writing in general. Exploring these elements can make writing more fun and liberate your mind to explore different ways of putting your story on the page. If you’re looking for ways to experiment with microfiction writing, as well as tighten up your grammar and mechanics, here are two suggestions you might enjoy:…

Fran Fabriczki Porcupines (Literary Fiction, April, Summit) “Young single mother Sonia’s precocious daughter, Mila, drags her on a hilariously disastrous school trip from L.A. to San Francisco, during which Sonia’s checkered past as a Hungarian immigrant is revealed.” WRITES FROM: London. PRE-PORCUPINES: I knew I wanted to write a novel, but I was hesitant to begin before I felt I had practiced the craft. Of course, it turns out there are certain things you can only learn by writing the whole novel, but at least I felt confident making a start. TIME FRAME: I started writing the novel at the end of my MA, as my dissertation, from then on it took about three years total, during which I moved houses, started and ended a new job, and gestated a…

I’m going to be straight with you, right from the jump—making a living at writing is hard. But despite the challenges and setbacks (and there are a lot), I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I prefer going to the gym at 10 a.m. instead of 4:45 a.m., like I did back when I had a grown-up job. It’s nice being my own boss; I’m one of the more reasonable managers I’ve ever had. Best of all, I get to tell stories for a living. The gig comes with a lot of homework, though. Unless you’re familiar with that 1099 lifestyle, you’ve got to learn how to navigate the financial side of things. There are plenty of resources online, but these days, looking for information online might turn up an answer…

What comes to mind when you hear science-fiction? Do you think of alien species, complex technology, stories taking place in the cold vastness of space? Unlikely heroes who use their money and their brains to create fantastical metallic armor and take on supervillains? Or high-fantasy alchemists toiling away in crumbling mansions, creating new races designed for hunting monsters? Author Mike Chen is thinking of all of these things and more. His novel Here and Now and Then is an emotional, genre-bending work about a temporal assassin who gets stranded in the past for 18 years before his rescuer arrives and turns his happy family life upside down. A Beginning at the End takes place six years after a pandemic has wiped out most of the population. We Could Be Heroes…

Literary agent advice on the business of publishing. After working on your book for the last two years, it’s finally time. You’re taking the next step and pitching literary agents at your favorite writing conference. You know you should be excited but you’re actually nervous. The room is louder than you expected. The table is wobblier than you expected. And the second you sit down, your brain tries to leave your body. Here’s the good news: Pitching is not a performance. It’s a short conversation. And you can prepare for it. SO, WHAT IS A PITCH? A pitch isn’t the time to cram your entire novel into a 10-minute appointment. It’s not the time to summarize every plot turn. It’s simply your response to the question, “So what’s your book…

How often have you heard the adage “dress for the job you want”? Probably often enough that it’s a cliché. But in that cliché is a nugget of truth: While appearance isn’t the only qualifier, it does matter. Showing up in scrubs at a hospital’s emergency room hopefully won’t allow you to practice medicine. But if you have the skills and knowledge to qualify for a medical position, yet you wear dirty, unsanitary scrubs to job shadow, you’re sending a message that you don’t take it seriously. Let’s say you’ve written a short story or essay, a novel or nonfiction book, based on a thrilling concept or a lived experience. You know the heart of the story would appeal to many readers. You’ve done your research about how to query…

Frontlist Python’s Kiss: Stories by Louise Erdrich (Harper, Short Stories, March 2026) SYNOPSIS: In this collection of 13 short stories, the specter of death and the afterlife joins them together along with the presence of animals in a least some form or capacity in each story. The collection begins with the title tale, “Python’s Kiss,” in which a girl is sent to her grandparents’ home while her mother has another baby. A fight between her uncle Jurgen and Jurgen’s fiancé’s father, Mr. Gamrod, reminds her of the time a python got loose during a school visit and its tongue reached out to smell her, then quietly slid away. In another story, “Wedding Dresses,” a woman tells her niece about the many wedding dresses stored in the basement that has flooded…

Please take a few minutes to share your experience reading my book. Your feedback will help secure film rights, a PBS Masterpiece adaptation, and hopefully, a profitable Substack. COVER AND PACKAGING • What about the cover convinced you to read the book? • Did you notice all 17 blurbs on the back cover? • Were you drawn to the book’s thinness and its use of 28-point Century Gothic font? PLOT AND PACING • Did you repeatedly reread the opening paragraph because it was canon-altering or because you’re not fluent in Middleearth English? • Do you think 37 plot changes in Chapter Two were enough? • At what point did it become obvious you couldn’t skim the book and had to read every word? • Would the story benefit from one…

DEVI S. LASKAR is the author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues, which won the Asian Pacific American Award for Literature and the Crook’s Corner Book Prize, and was named a finalist for the Northern California Book Awards. Laskar’s second novel, Circa, was a GOOP Book Club pick. In 2022, USA Today named Laskar among 50 AAPI authors to read. Her newest novel is Midnight, at the War. She is an alumna of The OpEd Project and VONA and holds an MFA from Columbia University. Originally from North Carolina, Laskar now lives in Northern California. PAUL NICOLAUS (NicolausWriting.com) is a writer whose work has appeared, in print or online, in The Atlantic, Backpacker, Fodor’s Travel, Men’s Health, National Geographic, NPR, Outdoor Life, Outside, Popular Science, Psychology Today, The Saturday Evening…

HOW TO BE A POETRY PRO While there are always exceptions, poetry is not the easiest or most lucrative way for writers to make money. In fact, many publication opportunities “pay” in copies of the journal or magazine; some consider publication itself payment. However, don’t mistake lower pay as a reason to act less professionally. Getting poetry published is still just as competitive as other genres, so acting like a pro can help you build bridges as opposed to burning them. Submitting Poems Most poets begin their careers by submitting individual poems to print and online publications that accept poetry. Once they’ve built up a substantial number of publication credits in various publications, poets can start the process of collecting them in a chapbook or full-length book. The first rule…

Today, the rise of 24-hour cable news has dramatically reshaped how we consume information. Constant repetition dulls our senses, and the relentless stream of crises leaves little room for context or contemplation. Our attention spans have shortened. We are more isolated, more reliant on fleeting social-media snippets. We are more easily manipulated. As I wrote Midnight, at the War, I found myself returning to the on-the-ground experiences that shaped me as a journalist in the ’80s and ’90s, when newspapers still dominated and the American public understood civics thanks to robust public education requirements. Some of these moments I gave to my protagonist, Rita Das—both to anchor her in a familiar reality and to give myself a starting point as I explored her fictional world. Like Rita, my first story…

Welcome to the 28th edition of the official Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers. A lot has changed in the last year, so you’ll see much of that reflected in this list. Websites we’ve included for years have merged with other sites, while others have quietly closed shop. So, we’ve scoured the web to find 15 new-to-this-list writing websites that we think will bring benefits to your writing life. From writing challenges and uplifting newsletters with strategies to boost your creativity when life has you feeling like you’re writing into the void, to exciting podcasts and blogs hosted by literary agents and editors, this list has a little something to help everyone improve your writing, learn about publishing, and find ways to share your work with the world. As…

The elevator lurched to a stop 44 stories above Toronto. Two construction workers were dead, three critically injured. I was a paramedic helping extract bodies from twisted steel suspended 600 feet in the air. That moment—the hypervigilance, the precision required while your nervous system screams—now lives in my thriller novels. But not as you might expect. After three decades as a paramedic and tactical medic, I’ve learned the difference between writing what you know and exploiting what you’ve lived. It’s a distinction that matters more than most writers realize, especially those drawing from high-stakes professions like emergency medical services, healthcare, law enforcement, or the military. But this framework applies equally to anyone mining personal experience—from corporate careers to family dynamics—for compelling fiction. The Ethical Line in the Sand When I…

The art and craft of writing nonfiction. I ’ll admit it—until recently, like many writers, my online portfolio (TinyURL.com/mvt38ajx) looked less in need of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and more in need of How to Keep House While Drowning by therapist KC Davis. When I began writing, I housed my writing clips in a physical portfolio. Showing a potential employer clips was easy; you brought your portfolio to an in-person job interview or mailed out photocopies. However, today, sharing your portfolio is digital, and non-negotiable. Betsy Loeff, a freelance writer based in Grand Junction, Colo., calls an online portfolio “table stakes” for a professional nonfiction writing career. “You have to ante up and get one,” she said. “The expectation is that you can show (editors) your…