Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 155

Writing: How To Be a Writer During the Holidays

If you are anything like me, you may be a writer but you are also a wife, a mom, and any number of other things – choir member, PTG president, etc.  So I don’t need to tell you just how busy this time of year is.  How do you manage to find time to write? […]

Writer’s Work Spaces

The writers that I know work in a variety of places.  My friend Kris loves to write in coffee shops.  I’ve tried it.  Apparently, I’m a hobbit.  Everytime someone with food walks past me, I look up.  “Mmm.  That looks yummy.” Another friend told me that she checks out a study room at the local […]

Picture Books: Know What Is Being Published Now

When I saw that Matt de la Peña had done an NPR interview on picture books that are loved in his household, in spite of hip deep Christmas preparations, I took the time to click through and listen.  De la Peña is the 2016 Newbery winning author for the picture book Last Stop on Market Street.  Reminder, the Newbery […]

Tropes: Using them to their best advantage

During a recent snowday, my family took our positions in the family room and watched Anna.  For those of you who don’t know the movie, she is a beautiful girl who is also a brilliant Russian assassin.  “How many times are they going to make the same movie?” asked my son. “We saw the same thing […]

Secondary Characters: How They Relate to Theme

Just today as I was working on my cozy, I had to create yet another secondary character.  Honestly, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the secondary characters.  I’d created a pair of friends, spouses, parents and kids.  There were other members of the choir, the choir director and more. Then yesterday, I […]

Sticking It Out for the Long Term

Last week I was reading an interview with a “long standing” author.  I always read these posts because I want to know how people make it work.  What do they do right so that they are still here? And then it hit me.  I had my first sale was in 1996.  That’s 23 years ago.  […]

What Is Your Brand: Do You Need a Logo?

Mention marketing or branding and most writers stampede for the door.  I have to admit that 90% of the time, I am one of those writers.  But this past week I’ve been doing less writing and more stuff. Some of it is household stuff – pre-Christmas cleaning so we can decorate this weekend. Some of […]

Writing for Kids: What It Means in the Age of The Wall

David Bowles grew up in a border town in south Texas.  He remembers never seeing a character that was like himself in the books he read.  No one was a US Latino.  No one had to work through the same realities.  This is why he decided to become a writer. When he was asked to […]

Author Love: Tomi Adeyemi

It is an amazing thing for me, as an author, to read another writer’s book and think, “Wow!  This is just so good.” Am I jealous?  Maybe a little.  But the books I love most are so different from what I write. I simply could not write them. One of these authors is Tomi Adeyemi, […]

What Is Your Brand?

What is your brand as a writer? When we say “brand,” often people think about a commercial brand like Coca Cola or a service like Google.  But writers also have brands.  It is what people think of when they hear a certain writer’s name. What do you think of when someone says “Stephen King” or […]