Last week the creative division at my company had a fantastic symposium. All day, we heard impressive visiting speakers from many fields talk about belief and purpose in one’s work. The event took place at the gorgeous Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. (PS: look how pretty, you should move to Kansas City, everything here is amazing. Here is the outside:
Author: Bryn Donovan
Hey friends! It’s the first Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means… time to share a chunk of whatever it is we’re working on! As always, it’s fine if it’s rough. This isn’t a time for group critique — it’s just for sharing. I did not get as far as I wanted to on book two of my
Last week a commenter on my blog asked a question about how to research a setting you don’t know well — or one you’ve never been to at all. I had been thinking about this very thing lately! Fantasy and science fiction writers have to go to the trouble of inventing a whole new world, but unless they have inconsistencies,
In the past few months, I’ve gotten a couple of compliments that I never used to get before. Three people referred to me as a “ray of sunshine” (that exact phrase), and two people called me a “powerhouse.” I was super pleased about both of these, which is probably why I’m writing a post about them. I’m basically just bragging here. But
“My novel is similar to another one. What do I do?” “Is my story too much like another book?” Authors worry a lot about whether their story is original enough. And I think they worry about it too much. What if someone told you they were going to write some young adult books about a boy who goes away to
Last week, like everyone else, I was gutted by the news of Prince’s death. His music has been so much a part of my life. Mr. Donovan and I even danced to a Prince song (“Forever In My Life”) for the first dance at our wedding! His individualism, imagination, and frank treatment of sexuality were a big influence on me
One of the main ways that people get a book of poetry published, particularly a first book, is by winning a poetry book contest. There are dozens of these book contests out there. A few years ago, I read for one of them, helping to make the first cut of submissions. It was not an anonymous contest, and the applicants provided short