Lisa Birk

Some weeks before my artist friend Vicki Paret’s baby arrived, she stretched nine canvases of equal size. She gridded nine rectangles on...

The danger in reviewing Patricia Park's book is that in listing her many accolades & accomplishments, you’ll miss out on the smart fun of...

For a couple decades, starting with Nancy Drew right on through to Elmore Leonard, mysteries were my constant companion. I was sometimes...

The last time Joshua’s father beats Joshua in the woodshed, they accidentally set the woodshed on fire. Joshua’s father is not just...

Consider the Comic where what’s not on the page is as important as what is. So says comic artist and writer Scott McCloud in his...

Bad juju comes to most of us, and sometimes it comes all at once and sometimes it is a staccato of bad news, one thing, another thing,...

Perhaps you have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Perhaps, you are not snarky and you have not thought derisively, Oh...

How Not to Write I used to keep a book on my shelf to remind myself how not to write. The book, call it Stricken, consisted of a...

Novels are my second love, the roast beef in my diet. And I relish the meal. But I down short stories like chocolates. For their density....

I have just spent two-and-a-half years revising my novel.* The odds on getting it published feel, well, long. My writer friends...