PROBLEM CHILDREN by Rob Lopresti I have a black plastic notebook on my desk with nine short stories in it. Each of these stories is a complete draft. Some have been revisited many times; one was first jotted down last week. All of them need more revision before they go out in the mail. I […]

WORD RIFFING by Melodie Johnson Howe Sitting at my desk I couldn’t decide if I should finish my short story or work on my new novel. Paralysis. Sometimes to free my mind I like to just think about words. I call in word riffing. For instance I hate the word grass. It doesn’t do the […]

I wrote the following over a year ago for a previous incarnation of The Scribbler, and stumbled upon it while looking for something else. It struck me as appropriate for Criminal Brief, so I brushed it up — I can never read anything I’ve written without rewriting it, even just a little — and here […]

1 CHANCE by Leigh Lundin Cardiff I don’t care if you hate hip-hop; I don’t care if you hate opera. Hang in here with me and follow two great stories with overlapping themes, because you’ll enjoy this. Several months ago, my friend Diane Mordas and my brother Glen both sent me a YouTube.com link of […]

CHARACTER STUDY by John M. Floyd I love to read books about the craft of writing. Some are worthwhile and some are worthless, but now and then you find a piece of advice that makes a lot of sense. For example, this point made by Stephen King, in his book On Writing: “I can’t remember […]

LOVE OF WORDS by Steve Steinbock I have a deep and abiding love for words. They, together with their partner syntax, form the most profoundly unique human invention: language. Without words, not only would we have nothing to talk about on this forum, but we quite literally (pun not intended) wouldn’t have the words to […]

CHASING CREATIVITY by Deborah Elliott-Upton Recently another writer shared with me that he heard an author announce since she became a writer, she no longer gardened, although she loved working with the earth and seeing things grow. She’d also given up quilting and determined she would sew no more — all so she could become […]