You are a beautiful butterfly! As a writer, you have the ability to take your career with you wherever you go. Technology and portable devices allow us to pack lightly and tread gracefully to our destinations. The ability to do business online provides you with the freedom to choose where you want to live and work, and gives you a sense of place and identity wherever you are. A portable career is rooted in the desire to be wherever you want in the world while making a living doing what you love. MORE >>

Whether you are looking to boost your income or work on your craft, we know that education is an important part of a writer’s career. That’s why WOW! handpicks qualified instructors and targeted classes that women writers will benefit from. All of the courses operate online and are taught one-on-one with the instructor. The flexibility of the platform allows students to complete assignments on their own time and work at their own pace in the comfort of their own home. Visit the classroom page and check out our current line up of workshops: fiction writing, writing for children, screenwriting, creativity, memoir, personal essay, grammar, food writing, freelance writing, novel writing, finding a literary agent, blogging, social networking for authors, independent publishing, and more. MORE >>

The results are in! After careful deliberation our honorable guest judge, literary agent Elise Capron of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, has made her final decisions. Read the winning stories of the 750 words or less open prompt Winter 2012 Flash Fiction Contest. MORE >>

OK, budding travel writers, maybe you won’t find eighty different ways to pen your journeys. But with creativity, ingenuity, and a passport or driver’s license, you may soon be leaving on a jet plane or discovering life is a highway while on your way to selling an article. Travel writing no longer exists only on the pages of glossy travel magazines. These treasured stories have packed their bags and hiked to greener pastures—new markets including blogs, news magazines, culinary quarterlies, and the top ten bestseller’s list of the New York Times. LuAnn Schindler interviews four talented writers—Maralyn Dennis Hill, president of the International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association; Wanda Mann, a.k.a. The Black Dress Traveler; Lisa Napoli, author of Radio Shangri-La; and Muriel Clark, assistant director, North Platte/Lincoln County Nebraska Convention and Visitors Bureau—who offer panoramic glimpses into this highly competitive, yet satisfying, writing arena. MORE >>

The romantic version of being a writer includes sitting in a quaint coffee shop in the middle of a small European town, noshing on a pastry, while handwriting a novel. In reality, when I’m not in my office, my writing is done in parking lots, waiting for appointments, and at the library. Not the stuff of dreams, but the portability of my profession is a wonderful and sometimes necessary thing. From castles to cafés, writers set up shop in many different places. Janine Boldrin examines the pros and cons to help you decide if one might be a good fit for you. She also interviews Diane Chamberlain, best-selling author of twenty novels, including The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes; Laura Amann, freelance writer; Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone; and Jenna Glatzer, author of twenty books, including Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer. Read on to learn about writers’ favorite spots to work, and see if one might be a good fit for you. MORE >>

One of the most common complaints you’ll hear from writers in every genre is that they lack the time to work on their writing in a meaningful way. Everything gets in the way of the novel, the article, or the poem, including commuting to a job and working forty or more hours a week away from home. However, what if you could hold a position that would allow you to work from home with the flexibility to write throughout the day? What types of employment are available that still allow a writer time for writing, whether as a budding freelancer trying to build a portfolio or as a seasoned fiction/poetry/nonfiction writer working toward that next story or book? The answer could be working as an online instructor. Susan Gabrielle shows you how to get started. MORE >>

Whether for love or work, study or pure adventure, you’ve found yourself calling another country home. Maybe this is your first move. Or you’ve relocated so many times, you’ve lost count. You’ve become an expert at packing up the furniture, the personal belongings, the kids, and the dog. Why shouldn’t you bring your writing along, too? Expat Jo Parfitt did just that, as she followed her husband from the UK to Dubai to Oman to Norway to the Netherlands. Since leaving her home country twenty-five years ago, Jo has made a name for herself as an author, journalist, mentor, and publisher. She is the author of twenty-eight books and runs workshops for writers both online and in the Netherlands. Known as an “expat expert,” Jo’s passion is helping expat writers discover their passion. Interview by Tiffany Jansen. MORE >>

Many foreign writers have launched their portable careers while living in Japan. Tokyo, alone, is home to several magazines and newspapers aimed at the foreign population. Due to a high turnover in the expat community, these publications are always looking for new writers; so it’s relatively easy to break in. But a career in writing can go beyond the printed page or screen. The expats interviewed in this article have written extensively for a variety of print and online venues, but they’ve also parlayed their writing skills into jobs as public speakers, translators, editors, and producers of educational materials in Japan. Suzanne Kamata interviews Louise George Kittaka, Deborah Iwabuchi, and Holly Thompson, who explain the ins and outs of English-language writing-related work in Japan. MORE >>

We’ve covered many topics in this issue, including where writers like to work; and we’ve covered portable careers that you can take with you, along with advice for living and working abroad, but what about the nitty-gritty of writing while traveling? This three-article SLAM feature introduces you to three exciting writers who had the guts to give it a go, while pursuing their dreams; and they show you how you can, too. In Dreams of Long-Term Travel—Closer Than You Think, Rebecca Gallo offers practical advice for financing your trip, earning frequent flyer miles, finding alternatives to hotels, and more. Music/travel writer Steff Metal is used to crunching deadlines while she’s on the road and has some suggestions for you in her article, The Writer’s Adventuring Toolkit: Packing Essentials for the Traveling Writer. Natalia Lusinski has been on the road for over two years, moving to a new couch in Los Angeles every week. How does she do it and still manage to be a productive writer? You’ll find out in her fascinating (and funny!) article, How Background Noise Becomes My Writing Soundtrack While Moving from Couch-to-Couch Every Week. MORE >>

Before you dress in the morning, you check in with the local weather forecast via Twitter. As you pay for your chai latte, you flash the Facebook fan page discount to the barista. Before you splurge on that outfit, you check Pinterest to see if there’s anything cuter trending. That cute picture of your dogs at the park? Instantly public via Instagram. The fact that you’re at the local watering hole? Already on Foursquare. The saturation point is defined as the point at which no more of something can conceivably be absorbed. It’s a chemistry term, although it looks as though social media is vying for a cut of the pie, too. The absolute ubiquity of social media in many of our lives is a reality that’s probably not going to change tomorrow. Instead of fighting this, the writer must decide to approach social media in another manner—a smart manner. Allena Tapia shows you how. MORE >>

In today’s publishing market, it’s not enough for authors to simply write great stories and novels. Writers must also promote and market their work. WordPress provides simple solutions for creating an author platform and makes managing ongoing content easier by putting the control in the author’s hands. Charity Kountz covers what makes WordPress different, why it’s great for authors, useful widgets and plugins, SEO, social media, and blogging to keep your brand relevant. MORE >>

Perhaps you’ve noticed that more and more of us are acquiring citizenship in the e-reader universe. Somewhat technophobic, I was slow to join the e-reading brigade. But once I purchased a Kindle, I knew that I needed to revisit something else I hadn’t yet embraced—NetGalley. In its own words, NetGalley “delivers secure, digital galleys to professional readers. If you are a reviewer, blogger, journalist, librarian, bookseller, educator, or in the media, you can use NetGalley for FREE to read and request titles before they are published.” Erika Dreifus reviews the platform and surveys seventy NetGalley users who share their thoughts about everything from usability to title choices. MORE >>