Hello, ACFW!

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THE ACFW VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR FEBRUARY 24 – 25, 2024 Hello ACFW! I’m Kathleen Y’Barbo-Turner, a member of the ACFW Executive Board, and I’ve got great news for you! If you’ve been a member of ACFW for any length of time, you’ve no doubt attended or at least heard about our fabulous ACFW Annual Conference–the premier conference …

Learning from Reading a Master Novelist

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By Carol Buchanan, PhD The best thing fiction writers can do for ourselves is to read fiction. Read any novel you can get your eyeballs on. Read popular novels, novels you wouldn’t write on a bet, novels of all sorts and in as many genres as you can without saying “Yuck” and throwing the book away. (Because we want to …

Books that Empower Writers to Excel

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By Frank DiBianca I have a recurring nightmare in which I walk onto the stage of a packed symphony hall. I hold a violin and bow in my hands. The conductor turns to me and smiles. Suddenly, I realize I have not memorized my part. Even worse, I don’t know how to play the violin! Sound familiar? That’s probably not …

Cooking Up a Story

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By Tanara McCauley “Are these…scones?” My teen’s guess was generous, considering the cookies looked more like jagged blue biscuits coated in a suspicious glaze. She held one in her hand, eyes skeptical. I frowned at the cookie-biscuit-scone between her fingers and shook my head. It was a lemon blueberry cookie, or it was supposed to be. Only I’d had to …

When to Invest in Your Writing Career

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By Carol Alwood Writers have far too many decisions to make. I’m not saying we’re the only professionals bogged down by options and the pressing need for results. Other professions have too many choices to make too. Besides being a writer, I’m an elementary school teacher. They say teachers make 1,500 decisions in a day. This turns out to be …

To Follow or Not to Follow the Yellow Brick Road of Writing Rules

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By Ane Mulligan I began my writing journey as a playwright. I learned how to write good dialogue by default. As the creative arts director for my church, I’d write weekly sermon illustration sketches. With the first few scripts I wrote, my actors would change the way they said the lines. When I realized what they did, I listened carefully …

Have You “Arrived” Yet?

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By Patricia Bradley Do writers ever “arrive”? You know, get to the point where they quit learning? Or studying the craft? Not if we want to be good writers, we don’t. And now is one of the best times in the history of writing to get help if you’re just starting out or to hone your craft if you’ve been …

Learning By Teaching

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by Rachel Hauck At the ACFW conference in Houston ’03, I watched the bubbly and newly published Susan May Warren dash off to teach a writing workshop one afternoon. I remember thinking, “How does she know what to teach? She’s only been published a year.” As a newly contracted author four months from my first print publication with an e-book …