Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been reading the novels of author Stephen King’s annoying doppelganger, Stephen Kong, whose titles are like those of King’s, with the exception of one letter. For example, Kong’s first novel recalls the...
Having a hard time with writer’s block? So did Gustave Flaubert while trying to get his great novel Madame Bovary (Bookshop|Amazon) underway, telling a correspondent: I am finding it hard to get my novel started. I suffer from stylistic...
In an essay in LitHub, Kate Angus urges writers to be kind to themselves when they have a creative block. Sometimes you can get past it simply by letting yourself not write at all, with the hope that lying fallow for a while may be just what you...
Being a writer and making a living as a writer are often two different things. Maybe you’re writing poetry at night but by day you’re writing technical manuals or web copy. Journalist Michael Erard, whose day job is writing for think...
Martha offers excellent writing advice from the former editor of People magazine, Landon Y. Jones. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Writing Advice from an Editor” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m...
There’s a frisson you get when you meet a word for the first time—feeling pleasantly stumped in between wondering, “What the heck does that mean?” and hurrying off to find out. Martha and Grant talk about some terms that had just...