Learning to Write and Jack Kent Cooke

I’ve always wanted to be writer. Or more precisely, a storyteller. When my first daughter was born I was in my mid-thirties. I worked as a firefighter/forestry worker still going through the motions of writing stories and poems and getting some published, but realized how inadequate it was. I had bought into the notion that …

Excerpting Books for an Essay or Short Story

I took a couple of chapters from a novel in progress, formed them into a short story and sent it in to the Narrative Prize. I placed in the top ten and Tom Jenks at Narrative Magazine sent me back a copy with his editorial suggestions. Red Flag Warning had like six pages cut from …