by Jamie Chavez | Apr 28, 2014 | The Writing Craft
These days it seems like a lot of folks live in public—between Facebook and Twitter and Instagram (and there are many others), blogging and other personal websites, texting and emailing, there is a massive amount of information “out there.” But I’m not sure if our...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 27, 2014 | The Writing Craft
It’s hard to be a beginner. Kids, they’ve got that whole teacher / student dichotomy down, but when you’re a grownup with a novel burning a hole in your pocket (not to mix my metaphors or anything), it’s not always easy to resume the role of student. But, my friends,...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 18, 2014 | Books You Might Like
My involvement with the foodie book group means I’ve always had an eye cocked for, well, food books. So how could I ignore this title—The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese? Between the fabulous cover design,...
by Jamie Chavez | Feb 10, 2014 | The Writing Craft
We’ve talked about those ripped-from-today’s-headlines stories as a source of ideas for fiction: teen bullying and suicide, drug addiction, drug legalization … These are all topics in the news right now, and might well provide a theme upon which to build a compelling...
by Jamie Chavez | Jan 9, 2014 | Books You Might Like
I read thirty-three* books for pleasure in 2012—and at the end of the year I boiled it all down to One Favorite Book, difficult though that was. I read fifty-four in 2013, and most of them were titles I’d happily recommend, for one reason or another. I blogged about...
