Mirka Muse

  I have writing friends who say they are giving up.   They’re giving up writing new stories, querying agents, submitting to small publi...

  OR WRITERS and MONEY By some estimates there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who write full time. Some sources claim as many as...

  “ To write is to fight forgetting .” Annie Ernaux, Nobel laureate in literature 2022     Much is made of the impetus to write. Ann...

  Querying and pitching one’s work is a craft in itself. Books and hundreds of websites of how-to are devoted to this craft and will greet a...

  Or… 🎇Happy New Year🎇 A new calendar year spells a new beginning; a new (or renewed) chance at getting it right. A renewed hope that ...

Harking back to days when I gifted and was gifted holiday gifts, (now a minor part of my holiday season) I remember the day after Christmas...

  Ever note the day’s date and feel there is something significant that you ought to have remembered about it, but you draw a blank?   T...

  An agent recently published a post where agent explained that she & other publishing professionals can assess a query in fifteen secon...

  … Or is it Hanuka, Hanukka, or Hannukkah? And how about Chanukah?   Actually, it’s pronounced KHAH-NOO-KAH.   No matter^, the holi...

  Ah, well. The challenge of telling stories set in other countries includes how to tell their tellings in English, and what to do with fore...

  Maybe it was  fortuitous , but I happened upon this blog post one day after reflecting on the conduct of an artist who I’m close to. The ...

  Wistful: A sadness tinged with longing, often having a hint of sweetness.   Fall is an odd time because (like its name) it evokes decl...

  There’s a right way and a wrong way to ask writers to help your writing journey. I learned the hard way, making most of the usual mistakes...

On the eve of the camp horror-show that is Halloween, I am thinking of a different but also pseudo-horror our legislator have taken to sound...

  Some months back, my trusty old computer stopped functioning. I learned that I shouldn’t trust a machine, which had the audacity to take w...

    “ צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף לְמַ֤עַן תִּֽחְיֶה֙ וְיָרַשְׁתָּ֣ אֶת־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לָֽךְ׃ ”   “...

  Many (many!) years ago, in a land far away, I discovered The Little Prince.   He was a curious creature, born of fantasy. His journey ...

  How-to writing books and literary analysis courses have distilled storytelling conventions this way: Inciting incident > Main Charact...

  It’s been some years since we observed a variation of Sukkot, the holiday where Jews are advised to dwell in huts as our ancestors did whi...

   {Skip if you're in a solemn mood} Clever Definitions   COMMITTEE A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours. DUST Mud with th...