There is a famous account , perhaps apocryphal, of a visit made by a student to Vladimir Nabokov’s office at Cornell. The student decla...

Elmore Leonard: "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." Jonathan Franzen:...

1) Start with any sentence: I took a big swig. 2) Now add a whimsical phrase to give it some unexpected flavor. I took a big swig in the ...

Then park yourself in post-war Paris.  Pshaw, you say. We can’t go back. We’ll never be able to recreate the magic of Paris in the '...

… of your nearest war-zone ambulance.   Many an important war-time novel was dreamed up by the men who freighted the dead and dying...

Who among us hasn’t felt the urge to chip paint, swab the poop deck, or keep the midnight watch over a commercial shipping vessel at ...

This is the fourth of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners: Hi Natalie, what's your idea of great literary ficti...

This is the third of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners: Hey Jason, if you would, tell us a little bit about yourse...

This is the second of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners. Hi Mike. Why don't you start off by telling us what y...

This is the first of four interviews we conducted with 2011 NaNoWriMo winners. Hi Fiona, tell us a just little bit about yourself: I...

While those of us here at ShelfActualization.com spent the month of November getting this wonderful site off the ground, thousands of other ...

Lapham's Quarterly  recently ran an interesting chart detailing the day jobs enjoyed (or endured) by a few famous authors. It's wort...