by: Valerie Carr The story came onto my heart rather suddenly. It wasn’t something I had purposely prepared for or even considered writing. But I had a story in my head, and when I went looking for something like it in a book, I couldn’t find what I was searching for. If I came close, the story often contained content …
Rejoice With Those Who Rejoice
by Elle E. Kay @ElleEKay777 It’s conference time once again. On Saturday night, many of us will gather at the annual ACFW Gala and await the announcements of the titles that will receive the prestigious honor of a Genesis or Carol Award. I didn’t expect much when I watched a clip of the announcements to see who finaled. I’d never heard my …
Don’t Hold Back
By Chandra Lynn Smith This past weekend I did something new. And I was more than a little bit nervous about the endeavor. I don’t know about all writers, but I have a feeling many—maybe even most—of us are introverts. I recently learned a new personality type: extroverted introvert. People who are basically introverted but can adapt extroverted traits when …
To The Ones Who Help Us Write
by Jeffrey Friedel @JeffersonRiede Later this month, writers will arrive at the ACFW conference carrying laptops, business cards, carefully rehearsed pitches, and enough nervous energy to power downtown Memphis. We come ready to talk about protagonists, platforms, proposals, and plot twists. But behind nearly every writer is someone who helped carry a load that never made it into the conference …
The Stories We Echo
By Georgia Curtis Ling @GeorgiaCLing I thought I was marrying a city boy from Columbus, Ohio. It turned out his roots ran just as deep in Appalachia as my own, maybe deeper. Hanging in our entryway is the proof: a sepia portrait of a family dressed in their Sunday best, posed on the front porch of a white clapboard two-story, …
Accepting a Short Story Challenge
by Glynn Young Like most, if not all writers, I follow several writers who post and talk about the craft of writing. Like other writers, it’s helpful, encouraging, and instructive to see what others, Christian and non-Christian alike, are struggling with, learning, sharing, and figuring out. I published my last book in late 2024. What followed was a period of …
5 Ways to Manage Conference Sanity
By Lisa Jordan @lisajordan Yesterday I bought my airline ticket to Memphis for the 2026 ACFW conference, and I remembered my first ACFW in 2005—flying alone and walking into a hotel full of strangers. That initial conference was everything I’d hoped for and more. I formed friendships, realized how much I still had to learn about the writing industry, and …
Where Does Our Fiction Fit In?
by Aubrey Reiss Taylor @aubtaybooks Writing this post led me back to some musings I had scribbled during the first year of my writing journey. At the time, I was questioning where I fit in, and it’s a question I am still unable to answer perfectly. Markets and genres are important ways to define our writing, yet these are areas …
Take Time to Spur One Another On
by Stephanie Cardel @stephaniecardel “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10: 24-25, NIV). I didn’t become a Christian until …
I Can’t Write
by Cynthia Hickey My days have passed, my plans are shattered. Yet the desires of my heart 12 turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near. Job 17: 11-12 Writing is a tough business. Someone once told me you can learn the craft of writing, but to be a storyteller is a gift from God. …