By Dr. Dwight David Croy Life-changing events are priorities to be told. As a Christian writer, my first priority is to tell how I was saved by Jesus Christ. When invited as a guest speaker at a church, I often start with how I came to Christ because that is my authority for speaking. A book is like a platform …
Overcoming the Messy Middle of Writing and Life
by Lana Christian @LanaCWrites As authors, we have a love-hate relationship with the messy middle of our novels. We can’t wait to get past it. We wonder how we’ll get through it. (Sounds a lot like life, doesn’t it?) In the messy middle, our characters often make wrong choices. Barriers block their goals. Their lows get lower. Revelation and resolution …
More Than a Stage—Use Your Setting to Illumine Your Story
by Sarah Sundin @sarahsundin Shakespeare tells us, “All the world’s a stage.” For the novelist, the challenge is to take our setting from a cardboard cutout of a stage to illuminating depth. Choosing Your Setting The initial choice of setting is often driven by a story spark. We already know it’s set on the prairie in the 1880s or an …
I Wasn’t An Author, Until God Said, Write
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 …
When YA Isn’t Enough
By Daniel P. Warner The tone of the story has more of a YA feel than a book marketed to adults. I stared at the words in the rejection email, trying to make sense of them. Even at that early stage in my writing journey, I recognized how valuable it was to get feedback deeper than a form letter. But …
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 …