by Mark Tarallo, AIW Vice President
Think back twenty years, to 1989. The internet and email pretty much unheard of. Most did not have a personal computer, or a cell phone. Cutting-edge personal technology? A fancy answering machine.
Day-to-day life in 1989 was substantially different than it is today. One could almost say it was another [...]
The Official Blog of American Independent Writers
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Technology and the Novel
To Do or Not to Do… Two Ways to Respond to a Client Request
by Deborah Wunderman, AIW Board Member
Your client with whom you have worked for many years has hired another freelance writer—and now requests your help in transitioning a new consultant to do what you once did as well as wants copies of materials and documents previously sent to them. Recently finding myself in this situation, I [...]
Write What You Know? Hell, no! Know What You Write!
by Jessie Seigel, AIW Board Member
As a writer, I find myself perpetually at odds with the adage: write what you know. Too often it is taken literally, as an injunction to approach only subject matter that comes from one’s own experience. Frequently, this results in fiction that is simply veiled autobiography. Unless the life is [...]
The Beautiful Mongrel: You’ve got to love a language like English
a “Verbal Knightcap” by Robert M. Knight, AIW Board Member
It’s unruly, and harsh. Its spelling can be ludicrous. But English might well be the most beautiful of the dozens of languages and hundreds of dialects we call Indo-European. Depends on your definition of beauty.
That definition requires that we forget the sophisticated sound of French, the [...]
Building a Community of Writers
by AIW Board Member Andrew W.M. Beierle
I’ve just returned from the Atlanta Gay Literary Festival, where I was invited to read from my second novel, First Person Plural. It was a sentimental journey: the first time in two years I have returned to the place I called home for more than a quarter century. A [...]
The Internet’s Missing Ingredient
by Clyde T. Linsley, AIW Board Member
For the past few years I’ve been writing fiction almost exclusively, but most of my 40-some-odd years as a professional writer were spent writing nonfiction. And mostly, it was journalistic writing.
I wrote for newspapers, radio, television, I edited magazines, and I wrote for various web sites. Nearly all of [...]
How Do You Know When it’s Time to Drop a Client?
by Deborah Wunderman, AIW Board Member
I have worked as a freelance proposal writer for 10 years in the Washington, D.C., area. During this time, I have encountered many wonderful clients and some not-so-wonderful ones.
The economic crisis has demanded much tightening of budgets and doing more with less. It has also brought to the surface [...]
Why I Write: Jessie Seigel
by Jessie Seigel, AIW Board Member
Why do I write? Today, I write because characters keep roaming through my head—characters with pasts and futures that I must put down on paper or no one but me will know they exist, and they’ll fade away. Last year, or the year before, the driving motivation was often a [...]
Why Join?
by Cecilia Sepp, AIW Immediate Past President & Chair, Member Engagement
With the onset of social media, many people the last few years have been declaring the death of the association. Their argument is basically “Why pay when you can get the same thing online for free?”
I am not one of these people, and I never [...]
The Gap that Shouldn’t Be: Journalistic Writing Versus Everyone Else’s
a “Verbal Knightcap” by Robert M. Knight, AIW Board Member
A long time ago, mainstream writing and journalistic writing said goodbye to each other, and English has been poorer ever since. Each has much to learn from the other, but I maintain that mainstream writers can learn more from journalistic writing than the other way around. [...]
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Read the Latest News from AIW
- AIW Member News : September 2010 September 3, 2010
- AIW and Partners Workshop : WHAT CAN AN AGENT DO FOR YOU AS A WRITER?, September 27, 2010 August 30, 2010
- Half Price Special for AIW Members : New York Writers Workshop Pitch Conferences, October 8-10, November 12-14, 2010 August 30, 2010
- Poet Kim Robert’s Upcoming Readings, Book Signings, Panels, and Tours August 28, 2010
- AIW President’s Report : August 2010 August 27, 2010
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