There has been some discussion in the book world lately about the prevalence of absent and/or dead parents in children's literature. In an interesting article in Publishers Weekly called "The Ol' Dead Dad Syndrome," editor and author Leila Sales argues that dead parents in children's literature are not only...

Do You Suffer From One of These Writing Maladies?

There are pernicious writerly germs out there infecting pages all around the world. Left uncured they can be fatal. Talk to your book doctor or literary health provider if you notice any of these symptoms:

Yoda Effect: Difficult to read, sentences...

One of the more challenging aspects of being a literary agent is dealing with the incredible deluge of submissions that pour in every single day, twenty four hours a day, from all corners of the globe and for every type of project imaginable. I don't keep precise stats on the...

Fads, crazes, hysterias, and other contagious social phenomena have long been a mysterious and occasionally hilarious part of human history. From meowing nuns to the Backstreet Boys, we humans have periodically been overtaken by curious mass obsessions for reasons that have never been entirely clear.

At least, until...

Slate's technology writer Farhad Manjoo recently wrote a very interesting article about some off-base predictions of yore about our digital future. He focuses on a whopper of a Newsweek column from 1995 (which is actually titled "The Internet? Bah!") about how the Internet would be a...

In the climactic scene in Frank Norris' classic novel McTEAGUE, the two antagonists find themselves in the desert. Shady San Francisco dentist McTeague has murdered his wife to steal her money (Belated spoiler alert!). He is then pursued by his former best friend Marcus, who wants revenge slash money slash...

During my meetings with editors, agents, sales assistants, marketers, and other assorted publishing types in New York this past week, there was a common theme that kept cropping up again and again:

Moving the needle.

(That's "making an impact" for those of us not fluent in Corporatese.)

Editors want to...