by Jamie Chavez | Apr 18, 2015 | Miscellany
“The small independent bookstore is coming back,” Ann Patchett says, and has said, often. In “The Bookstore Strikes Back” (The Atlantic, 28 November 2012), she describes a place you’ve probably been in yourself: The bookstore of my youth was Mills. My sister and I...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 11, 2015 | Miscellany
You know I love to talk about getting the details right in your novel, so when I read A. A. Gill’s lovely essay in Vanity Fair, I knew I had to share. “We are coming to the end of the age of the telephone call,” he says, “and that may be a good thing or a bad thing,...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 26, 2015 | The Writing Craft
In the same way that it’s hard to define what makes a great book, or what makes great writing, it is nearly impossible to get a definition of narrative voice in writing. Impossible missions, however, have never frightened Your Editor. Stand back. What you hear most...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 21, 2015 | Your Editor Says …
I just sent back a first pass edit on a well-researched novel set in the Middle Ages. I can tell you this only because it rang true; the few facts I know about medieval life could dance on the head of a pin with room to spare for several angels. But I knew enough to...
by Jamie Chavez | Jan 8, 2015 | Books You Might Like
There is a photo of me in my mid-twenties sitting at the kitchen table reading a book. There are two other books on the table, one open, and my arms are positioned in such a way that I am touching all three books. This would not be untypical for me. In those days, I...
