Writers and Editors

This category is kind of like "religion." Where does one start? More to come. Suggestions welcome.

· Some books to get you going
· General links on writing
· Connect with other writers (and editors)

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Some books to get you going:

· Maria Arana, ed., The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work (a collection from Washington Post Book World)

· Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

· Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (1990)

· Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (1986)

· Jack Hart, A Writer's Coach: An Editor's Guide to Words That Work

· Stephen King, On Writing (2002)

· Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1995)

· The New York Times, and Darnton, John (introduction). Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times, New York Times (2002)--and see link below.

· Tan, Amy. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life

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"Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say."
~Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story

"I believe in not quite knowing. A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning. I write out of curiosity and bewilderment...I've learned a lot I could not have learned if I were not a writer."
~ William Trevor

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Connect with other writers (and editors)

Absolute Write (MacAllister Stone's Water Cooler, where writers exchange tips, share experiences)

Conferences, workshops, and other learning places

Crime fiction organizations and conventions (Overbooked)

CrimeOnline.net (forum, community of crime fiction writers, readers, and professionals from publishing and crime-related fields)

Crime Writers (a forum for those interested in writing or currently writing crime fiction--police procedurals, noir, hard-boiled, etc.)

CrimeThruTime (Yahoo discussion group on historical mysteries, authors and readers)

Critique.org (critique one another's science fiction, fantasy, and horror drafts)

Editors and copyeditors

Fiction writers

Fiction Factor forum

Illustrators and media professionals

JacketFlap (social networking community for published authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults)

Journalists' organizations

Kitchen Tables and Regional Get-Togethers (International Women's Writing Guild)

Local and regional U.S. groups for writers and editors

Mystery Readers International, reading Groups

Murder Must Advertise (online discussions on best ways to promote mysteries)

Poets

Red Room

Sisters in Crime (Internet chapter)

Science and medical writers

Screenwriters

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), regional groups and gatherings

Specialty writing(network with fellow automotive writers, cat writers, dog writers, horse writers, food writers, outdoor writers, songwriters, sportswriters, travel writers, Web writers, wine writers)

Technical writers

Washington Biography Group (WBG)

Writer-L (a subscription-only listserv for writers of narrative nonfiction)

Writers and Editors One on One(magazine writers up close and personal with magazine editors)

Writers meetup groups (check out those near your zip code)

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“People ask me, ‘Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, about love, the way others do?’. . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it. . . There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.”
~ M.F.K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me