Category: Guest Blog Posts

Writing Past the Inner Critic – guest blog post by Sage Adderley-Knox

I remember the first time I dipped my toes into the publishing world. It was 15 years ago. Excited and terrified, I spent hours online searching for local writing groups and didn't have much luck finding anything in my rural area. What I found online was an enormous […]

Considering Self-Publishing – guest blog post by Kathy Lundy Derengowski

The time has come to think about publishing. You have at last, a "body of work", which represents many hours of writing, revision, submissions, acceptances, critiques, rejections, more revisions, editing- blood sweat and tears. You've been published on sites esteemed or obscure, your church bulletin, or Paris Review. […]

Meditation and Writing – guest blog post by Mike Griffith, The Blue Nib poetry editor

I just went to the kitchen to put my coffee mug in the sink and the mesh drain filter was full of assorted debris: food scraps, a chunk of cat food, and something I can't identify. Yuck! As I knocked the filter into the garbage can to clear […]

10 Revision Ideas – guest blog post rewind by Diane Lockward

I’m posting here the Craft Tip I contributed to my craft book, The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop. You might find it helpful as you work on new poems this month. You might also find it useful for working on poems you wrote months, or even years, ago. […]

Playing Online With Synonyms, Homonyms and Multilingual Dictionaries – guest blog post by Kimberly Burnham, PhD

  The use of a particular English word like “peace” varies over time. Some words become more popular while other drop in popularity.  On the Google Books Ngram Viewer we can look up the historical usage of “peace” in English, “paix” in French or “paz” in Spanish. We […]

To Swag or Not to Swag (And How to Do It Right) – guest blog post by John Sibley Williams

Many authors know about swag and its potential to increase visibility and book sales. But with the wealth of material and distribution options available, what is the best way to integrate it into their marketing campaign? Here are a few tips on how to make the most of […]

How to Be Your Own Best Poetry Editor – guest blog post by Lisa Young

Sometimes you get to a certain point and you just don't know what to do with a poem. You might have many drafts and you don't know what's working anymore. You've lost perspective. And on top of that, maybe you're surrounded by a whole bunch of other discarded poems […]

My Label is Aaron – guest blog rewind by Aaron Gates, co-editor-in-chief of Peculiar

As people, we often like to put ourselves into categories. As writers, we tend to do the same thing. We say things like, "I'm a fiction writer" or "I'm a poet" or, if you're me, "I'm, like, kind of a poet, I mean, I like to write poetry, […]

Do you, or do you want to, submit your writing to literary journals? – guest blog post by Ellie O'Leary

Here are some of the lessons I've learned and decisions I've made in the area of literary submissions. Some of these I consider hard and fast rules, others are more like guidelines, and finally some are my preferences representing decisions I've made about how to conduct my own […]

Health, Healing and Peace through Narrative Poetry – guest blog post by Kimberly Burnham, PhD

Kimberly Burnham’s most recent book, Awakenings: Peace Dictionary, Language and the Mind, a Daily Brain Health Program is on free download on February 14-15, 2019 at http://www.NerveWhisperer.Solutions. “Healing is a matter of time, but it is also a matter of opportunity.” -- Hippocrates, 460 BC-370 BC. Poetry can […]