First novel, Earth, to Launch February 19, 2015

My first novel, Earth, is being published by Seattle’s Booktrope, and the official launch is this Thursday, Feb. 19th. Join our mailing list on my website, carolineallen.com, and be entered to win a couple of fun promo prizes. I’m a visual artist and metaphysical coach (besides being a fiction writer) and you could win a […]

How to Write a Book

In the ten years that Art of Storytelling has coached writing clients on novels, memoirs, and self-help books, we’ve noticed a certain process evolve organically for almost every writer. The process is one of commitment. Still, how many times have you heard someone say, “Commit to your writing”, but then you don’t know how or […]

Art of Storytelling is Hiring an Intern

The Art of Storytelling is hiring an intern in the Portland, Oregon area. With clients all over the globe, Art of Storytelling’s coaches and editors work online with creative writers on novels, memoir, screenplays and short stories. We help excavate a writer’s authentic voice, evolve that creative expression step-by-step, and finally help clients get published. […]

Building an Author Platform

Most writers have heard about the importance of building an Author Platform. New writers are encouraged to magnetize an audience for their books well before publication. They build literary websites, create Facebook Fan pages, blog on the writing process, tweet, all to create a buzz.  The idea is that an agent will more likely sign a […]

Getting Published: The Query

In Art of Storytelling’s ongoing series of essays on the writing process, former New York literary agent and current writer and AofS coach Jon Sternfeld weighs in on the query letter. Jon’s insider knowledge of how to approach an agent is invaluable to any writer who wants to get published. (Be sure to watch for […]

Writing a Novel, English as a Second Language

In Art of Storytelling’s ongoing series of essays by guest bloggers, Russian novelist Nadia Clifford explores writing a novel in English when English is your second language. Nadia, who is working on her first novel, grew up in Moscow and now lives in the Boston area. Art of Storytelling is offering an E-Course entitled International Novel/Memoir: […]

How to write: Keeping a series character fresh

  Welcome to the first in a series of essays on writing by guest bloggers. Today’s blogger is Marni Graff. A former writer for seven years with “Mystery Review” magazine, Graff has interviewed Ian Rankin, Deborah Crombie, Val McDermid, and her mentor, P. D. James, amongst many others. A member of Sisters in Crime, she runs […]

Semiautobiographical Novel: A Eulogy

On June 9, 2012, I hosted a reading of six memoir and fiction writers at Santoro’s Bookstore in Seatte. My father is dying of Parkinson’s. One evening I was thinking about how at his funeral all the eulogies would be cleaned up, politically correct versions of the truth. Why couldn’t someone tell a real story, I thought, about […]

Upcoming Fiction/Memoir Reading in Seattle

15-minute painting series, self-portrait, oil bar on paper, 12×12, http://www.carolineallen.com Many people have a profound need to write. Telling their story, whether through fiction or nonfiction, feels as essential to them as eating or breathing. Are you a writer? Do you want to see how other new writers tackle the soulful and practical aspects of […]

Owning the ugly

Wheel of Fortune, acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 20″, http://www.carolineallen.com. In July of this year, I underwent surgery for a total thyroidectomy. It wasn’t cancer, just a thyroid that was profoundly overactive, speeding up my metabolism so fast that I went down four sizes in less than three months. Luckily, I enjoy Romney-care in Massachusetts, […]