Mirka Muse

A few years ago, my then agent sent to all his writers a short list of what an editor he knew was looking for. One item on the editor’s wish...

  Most people know how to give an account of happenings. “This happened, and then that, and after that then this.”   These are accounts,...

  I know I’ve posted on this before, though it’s been a while. Good stories have an underlying theme, or themes. We know the how-to advi...

  If you’ve heard the term, you might have wondered what it is. There’s a good post on Upmarket Fiction here .   But this post is about ...

  The prefix “sub” (when not a colloquial for substitute, or the famed sandwich-making chain) means below or underneath .   In this way, a ...

  Motivation—the kind that propels our actions (such as my writing this post) is key to a good story. As a Beta reader, I have read manusc...

  *In storytelling and in life In a manuscript, a writer pays attention to tension. Keeping a certain level, which even when reduced must ...

  Make New Friends but Keep the Old Those are Silver but These are GOLD John Parry (1841-1903)   Old friends remember details we’ve ...

  “ What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet ” From Romeo & Juliet by Shakespeare   ...

  One may ask the same question in the title^ about actors or fine artists. Where in the artistic process and being does emotionality fit? ...

  Different folks struggle with different stretches. We’d be gingerperson-cookies if this weren’t so. But then, there are the life patches t...

  This morning, while steaming milk for coffee, I removed the sort of skin that formed on the surface before using a whipper to make a homem...

When I was one year old, my mother and I flew from Israel to the United States because her father, my grandfather whom I never met, had ju...

Or— New Etiquette for the New World A pandemic caused us to behave differently while wondering which or what of the old ways we may...

Though the global response and economic shut-down feels unprecedented for any who haven’t lived through the great depression or the last w...