Month: June 2015

  • “There’s a lot to be said for the long game”

    My college friend Michael Szczerban is now an editor, and he also contributes interviews to Poets & Writers magazine. From his latest, a roundtable with 4 young agents: Ballard: I often take people on and then work with them for a very long time. The first novel I sold this year was something I had worked with the…

  • “All roads lead to writing”

    From “Just. Keep. Writing.” by Victoria (V.E.) Schwab (with bold emphasis added by me): The fact of the matter is, if you’ve written a book, and it doesn’t sell, and you want to keep going, you need to write another. If you’ve written a book, and it does sell, but doesn’t do well, you need to…

  • What I’m asking myself lately

  • Hilary Masters, mentor and friend

    I remember being surprised that Hilary was a man. Based on name alone, I was expecting a woman that first time I walked into Hilary Masters’s classroom. Instead, I found a grizzled old soul with sharp eyes, a gravelly voice, and sly wit. He was intimidating because he didn’t suffer fools or slackers. But he was always wise and generous…

  • Spirits, banquet, smoke

    1. A stout white tower rises from the mountainside. Sloping blue roof. Lotus fountains and twin temples at the base. We drive through the mist and into the heart of the mountain. Take an elevator up. We are greeted by long corridors of polished wooden cabinets, and the ocean-deep silence of the dead. We seek…