Some things I learned this week: 1. Literary agents (good ones) are very busy people with high entry standards 2. Lots of people are writing books 3. Getting published is the exception not the norm 4. 35000 words is still much too short for a...

Dear Abby, A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid twenties. These two women go everywhere together, and I've never seen a man go into or leave their apartment....

It is very weird finding yourself in the middle of a hay stack. I suppose it could have been worse: the middle of a mountain, or perhaps mid air, hundreds of feet above the ground, but I had deliberately picked a very stable location in geophysical...

The editor's (or agent's) name and title The publication's name The publications address Dear (Mr./Ms.) (editor's [or agent's] last name), What if you made some bad choices and your once perfect life collapsed, leaving you alone and bitter in a...