Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Vermont College of Fine Arts President Thomas Christopher Greene, whose new novel, The Headmaster's Wife, comes out from Thomas Dunne Books on February 25th, 2014.

This week’s  Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard today. Write a scene from the perspective of a narrator who does not understand what is happening, but write it so that the reader does understand.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students. 

Vermont writer Jessica Hendry Nelson, author of the memoir If Only You People Could Follow Directions, and co-founder of the Renegade Writers' Collective.

This week’s  Write The Book Prompt was recommended by my guest, Jessica Hendry Nelson. “Write a letter of apology of which you don’t mean a word.”

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another. 

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students. 

Three conversations about self publishing: Kathryn Guare, two-time self-published author of the Virtuosic Spy Suspense Series; Kim MacQueen and Cindy Barnes, co-founders of Barnes Macqueen Publishing Resources in Burlington, VT; and Claire Benedict, co-owner of Bear Pond Books in Montpelier.

Today's Write The Book Prompt is more of a marketing exercise than a writing prompt. Think about how you would want your book to look if you were going to self publish. Do a little research: wander your local bookstore looking at covers and thinking about what draws the eye, and why. Are you picking up the same colors over and over? Do you prefer the look of a painting, a softly lit photograph, or bright graphics? How about the inside? Do certain fonts make you squint? Does one book feel better in your hands than another? Why? Is it about weight, page quality, margins? Take notes, look for trends. And then later, try to fit these ideas into some notions that you could convey to a designer. Not that you should design your own book; that work is not everyone’s forte. But if you have tastes, you should know what they are so that you can be a participant in the process of bringing your own book into the world.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students.