Avi's Blog, page 33

Q&A: How do you deal with criticism?

It is the way of most art—a piece of writing, movie, painting, dance, etc., etc.—that it is generally created to be experienced by others, and in so doing exposes itself to both public praise and criticism. That is inherently part of the art-making process. Moreover, this critical response comes to the artist, for the most […]

Remembering Dick Jackson

I was terribly saddened to learn of the death of Dick Jackson, a good friend and one of the great editors. Over many years I worked with him on some twenty books, but I had to go back and look at my list, because there may have been more. I worked with him more than […]

Q&A: Have you any advice for would-be writers?

Read. Read. Read. The more you read the better writer you can become. When you are setting out to become a writer it’s more important to read than it is to write.  Reading is the best teacher of writing. My own mantra is: Writers don’t write writing, they write reading. And remember, when you write […]

Sailing

Sixty years ago. It was some time about 1961 and I was a student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. At the time, I was working on my master’s degree in the Speech Department, wherein was housed the Theatre Department, for it was theatre I was interested in, working at trying to become a playwright. […]

Q&A: From the Mail Bag

Lately, in this blog, I have been providing answers to the questions I am most often asked about my books and writing. I’ve also invited readers to ask new questions. Here are two recently posed questions. “Will the 4th book in the Crispin series ever be published?” I rarely have a full sense of how the […]

Q&A: Numbers and Favorites

How many books have you published? There have been seventy-two novels, both long and short, and that includes two books scheduled for next year. There have been three collections of short stories and a fair number of short stories published individually in anthologies. There have been a few pictures books. There has been a published […]

Q&A: “How long does it take you to write one of your books?”

There are two extremes:  Bright Shadow took fourteen years to write from the time I began it until I had the published book in hand. S.O.R Losers was written in two days. The reason for both provides an answer to the question. When I was in high school, I was on the soccer team, a […]

Common Questions

I’ve long lost count of how many classrooms I have visited, either in-person or via Skype. These days a majority of my visits are with Skype, which saves time and money for all concerned. Regardless, down the years it has always fascinated me that the core questions I’m asked are often the same. It doesn’t […]

“What is your writing process?”

Over the past few weeks, in a number of venues, I have been asked: “What is your writing process?” I’m happy to give an answer as long as it is understood that I have NO notion that what I do constitutes rules for writing. Grammar and spelling have rules (which can sometimes be ignored) but […]

Lee

I won’t suggest I knew Lee Bennett Hopkins well. Nor was I engaged in his passion, poetry. But I did know him for a great many years and considered him a friend. It would have been around 1971 when I first met Lee in an elevator in the Random House building. We were going down […]