Do you need some writing inspiration? Contests are a great way to spark your creativity, and you may even win a prize! Get your best work together and consider entering the WOW! quarterly flash fiction contest with guest judge, literary agent Kari Sutherland with Bradford Literary Agency. Stop by the contest page, download the pdf guidelines, and read all about Heather’s preferences. The Winter Contest is open to all genres of fiction between 250 - 750 words. Only 300 stories are accepted, so enter early to ensure your spot in the contest. Over $1350 in cash prizes. Deadline: February 28, 2019. MORE >>

WOW! is proud to introduce our newest essay contest! Writers have been asking us to host an essay contest for many years, and we’ve finally listened. The mission of this essay contest is to inspire creative nonfiction and provide well-rewarded recognition to contestants. The contest is open globally; age is of no matter; and entries must be in English. Your story must be true, but the way you tell it is your chance to get creative. We are open to all styles of essay—from personal essay to lyric essay to hybrid essay, and beyond! Word Count: 200 – 1,000 words. Only 300 stories are accepted, so enter early to ensure your spot in the contest. 1st Place: $500. Deadline: April 30, 2019. 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, blogging, social networking for authors, independent publishing, branding for authors, poetry writing, copy editing, literary devices, working with a literary agent, writing scenes, book reviewing, travel writing and more. MORE >>

Confession: most of my learning experience with freelance writing has been the hard way. It’s been through clients that never contact me again without any good reason at all. It’s been through poor business practices from content writing agencies that don’t seem to appreciate their writers. It’s been through agreeing on projects that I never should’ve said yes to in the first place. So, today, for all the freelancers out there, I put together a few dos and don’ts that will help you stay afloat in the freelance writing pool (without learning everything the hard way). By Nicole Pyles. MORE >>

Are you tired of working teeny, one-off writing jobs for small publications and on-horse businesses? To get the best freelance clients, you’ll have to stop wasting time on the small fry and target a whole different category of prospect. In this article, Carol Tice provides freelancers with a list of client traits to look for, where to find these types of clients (including links), industries with fast-growing companies, and a pitch template that you can fill in to contact these clients. MORE >>

Non-writer friends might have thought your sanity was in question when you told them you were writing an entire novel in one month—especially the month that holds Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year. But you knew what you were doing all along. You were letting go of all the structure and technique that gives writers anxiety and just writing—freely and quickly and getting a first draft down on paper. Now, it’s there, and you’re wondering, what do I do next? How do I possibly turn this freeing, supportive, and positive experience of NaNoWriMo into a publishable document without going insane? Never fear—you don’t have to go crazy during the revision process. Just follow along as we take your 50,000 plus words to a whole new level. MORE >>

Congratulations! You took part in November’s National Novel Writing Month and committed endless hours to your manuscript within a mere thirty-day span. Now it’s January. Those dishes are done, along with most of that clearance-sale Christmas candy. Your manuscript languishes somewhere in your word processing program. Even though there are a few plot holes the size of semi-trucks, a stereotypical character or two or twelve, and enough typos to make your computer groan for five minutes as the document loads, you still have hope, or at least, blissful ignorance. Where do you go from here? Beth Cato, a nine-year NaNoWriMo veteran, takes the guesswork out of the process and walks you through the necessary steps you must take to begin preparing yourself to edit, revise, and polish your manuscript. MORE >>

You’ve finished your manuscript. You’ve celebrated the accomplishment of completing something many people dream of but never do. You’ve let your manuscript sit for at least a few weeks, and now you’re ready to begin editing. Self-editing is a lot more work than you may realize. It’s so much more than just checking for grammar and punctuation errors. You need to evaluate every part of your story: narrative, dialogue, characterization, setting, plot, etc. It’s important to ensure every aspect of your story is polished before you submit your manuscript to an agent. So, where do you start and what should you be looking for? Author and editor Annette Fix walks you through the process of editing your manuscript step-by-step.  MORE >>

I’m always surprised when an aspiring writer finishes a draft, runs it through spell check, and sends it out. I’m not surprised when a writer gets a rejection. Revision is as vital as original writing. The first draft is about passion and creativity and flow. The edits give you the chance to work on structure, language usage, layer in settings and senses, and make the difference between a decent manuscript and a great one. Over the years, I’ve come up with a layered editing process that’s served me well for short stories, plays, novellas, and novels. Now, I’m going to share the process with you. These steps are done after your initial draft, but before you show anything to a trusted reader. By Devon Ellington. MORE >>

Before you can get to the rewriting phase, you need to know exactly what needs to be rewritten. The answer to this question varies from author to author, depending on their path to publication, but typically includes some combination of editors, copy editors, and beta readers. The first two are pretty straightforward. Beta readers, on the other hand, are hard to put a finger on. Tiffany Jansen interviews authors Jody Hedlund, Stephen Leather, Joanna Penn, and Chuck Sambuchino to find out just what beta readers are and what they do. MORE >>

Many writers jump into revision with complete confidence only to find themselves alone in a dark room with their maniacal manuscript staring back via the eerie glare of a computer screen. It has happened to me (more than) once; and in fact, I was so desperate last year that I wrestled my manuscript into a suitcase and flew to New York in search of answers. Katherine Higgs-Coulthard chats with Kate Sullivan, editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and authors Jody Lamb, Barbara Shoup, and Cathy Day who share their best advice on how to tame your own Franken-novel.  MORE >>

Without reading a single word of your novel, Darcy Pattison can tell you some of its strengths and weaknesses by using the “Shrunken Manuscript” technique. This step-by-step process can help you evaluate the big picture of a novel: the overall structure, pacing, scenes, characters, and dialogue. By following these exercises, you'll be able to change the context of the story— from large to small—and it will give you a starting place for manuscript revisions.  MORE >>

It’s a common misconception that editors won’t deal with authors directly. Not only will they interact with you, but they’ll buy your book. Rachel Eddey knows this for sure because it happened to her. She had three agents try to sell her humorous memoir, Running of the Bride, with no luck for over two and a half years. As a last-ditch effort before shelving the project, she decided to represent herself—and sold it in fifteen days. Rachel shares how she did it, and interviews other authors who share how they landed a publishing contract without an agent as well. Featuring advice from Christine Clifford, author of the bestselling Not Now . . . I’m Having a No Hair Day; Janice Booth, author of Only Pack What You Can Carry; and Erin Lale, editor of Eternal Press and Damnation Books. MORE >>

A writer’s journey to publish a book can feel much like Dorothy’s journey to visit the Wizard of Oz. There’s a definite road to follow, but it’s not always easy. The good news is that help is available in the form of literary agents. Acquiring a literary agent is not easy, but it’s usually a must if you want your book published by a big publishing house. Agents are there for writers and are the key to gaining entrance into this elusive world. Kerrie Flanagan chats with literary agents Jessica Regel and Elizabeth Evans—both with the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency—and Kristina Holmes, founder and president of The Holmes Agency, who share not only what they do, but also specific insight to their success. MORE >>

If you’ve put a year into writing your book, you should put in a few extra hours towards proofreading, crafting a strong query letter, and researching your target agents and markets. Devon Ellington chats with Jessica Faust, literary agent and owner of BookEnds, LLC; Heather Osborn, editorial director of Samhain Publishing; and Stephany Evans, literary agent and president of FinePrint Literary Management, who share their best advice on submissions. Included is a helpful section on cover letters! MORE >>

The results are in! After careful deliberation our honorable guest judge, literary agent Heather Flaherty with The Bent Agency, has made her final decisions. Read the winning stories of the 750 words or less Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Competition. MORE >>

Check out the results of our latest essay contest! Read the winning essays of the 1,000 words or less Q1 2018 Essay Competition. MORE >>

In the spring of 2012, I found myself gazing into my monitor, not knowing whether to put a period at the end of the sentence or keep going with a comma. I’d lost my home in foreclosure, gone bankrupt, written 300,000 words, and revised the body of work four times. And while I was slurping away at my 5 p.m. crutch of a Cosmo, I understood what I was really missing—a mentor. Someone who’d gone before, knew how to shape art into something salable, and who would come along with a tribe of like-minded people with whom I could collaborate. I didn’t want to go back to school. What I was looking for was beyond the confines of academia. I needed someone to touch what the poet Mary Oliver called the “wild silky” part of myself and finally, make it palatable to the world. By Lisa Mae DeMasi. MORE >>

I type with nine fingers instead of ten. Not by choice! Holding the rogue finger above the keys, I make mistakes, correct them, and start again. The cause? On July 23, 2017, it is red, swollen, and throbbing with pain that I’ve put up with for four months now. The doctor lances it due to a fungal infection. Now two days later on July 25^th, she unwraps the wound on my left middle finger. Stunned, we both gasp at the blackened fingertip. She calls it necrotic. I’ve seen frostbitten hands on TV look like this before. “We don’t want you losing that finger,” she says. By Rhonda Wiley-Jones. MORE >>

I used to daydream, and say that I would be a millionaire by forty, hoping that the laws of attraction would bring it to fruition. My 40^th birthday came, and I had nothing but a broken heart, some of my clothes, my laptop computer, important documents, and that book bag with my pages, wondering if it would ever become a book. Nonetheless, I pulled those crumpled pages from that bag and typed out those words to create chapter after chapter. The chapters in my life also began to unfold. By Cortina Jackson. MORE >>

I know I’m not the only writer—especially not the only woman writer (after all, aren’t we supposed to be endlessly giving, eternally nurturing?)—who receives such requests on a regular basis. How frequently are we told of someone’s aunt, niece, little brother, daughter, etc. who is so talented and whose writing is so amazing, they know we’d love to read it and help them get it published? I’m sure that they think “getting something published” must be easy. After all, we do it, right? By Judith Sornberger. MORE >>

What writing mountain are you eager to conquer? As for me, in 2005, my writing Kilimanjaro was to publish my history article in a children’s periodical. I took my quest seriously: I read back issues of Cobblestone and Calliope magazines, studied their guidelines, sent out one pitch after another—and all this labor resulted in numerous rejections. At some point, I understood that I aimed at the mountain too high for me and started to look for other suitable and less competitive markets. I believed that there had to be a publication whose editor would appreciate my passion for history, writing style, and diligent research. By Tatiana Claudy. MORE >>

“A memoirist starts with events, then derives meaning from them.” – Don Delillo. As mentally laborious as it is to go back in my mind and recall the inciting event I’m writing about—the pre-, during, and post-scenarios that shape its narrative—it’s the meaning I must squeeze from the event that is challenging, time-consuming, and most of all, humbling. By Ann Kathryn Kelly. MORE >>

Writing was a process of discovering. Each time I wrote, I found a new angle into my past, a new way to approach and consider life. It was about getting that narrative out. Words as ushers. I wasn’t so much documenting trauma, but transforming past pain into a tangible story. Surviving this life is an art. If I didn’t tell my story, the traumatic memories would keep replaying in my mind—a continuous loop of what I wished I could leave behind but couldn’t get out of me. No matter how harsh and harrowing the words were, I had to write them out of me to cultivate some understanding about who I was—and especially who I was without my community, how they had to continue without me. How I could do the same without them. By Chelsey Clammer. MORE >>

Writers need resources. It’s why I do the submission consultations. I know things. I share with other writers those things I know, which makes me feel helpful and engaged. Like part of a community. Writers need guidance. So here I am, guiding you to an awesome writing community that can give you a lot of support because of its uber-resourceful characteristic: The Review Review. MORE >>

We asked WOW readers to turn in questions for Chelsey to answer about submitting your work, and the response was amazing! Writers had some great questions—everything from how to tell if feedback is real and when you should give up on a piece (after what number of rejections) to tips on writing humor and how to make your submission stand out from the rest. MORE >>

When you submit a super-personal poem, a revealing-of-others piece, or a taboo story, you have to be prepared for anybody and everybody to read your work. Because once published, you’ll need to be prepared for all types of responses, including possible backlash. MORE >>