🎉Ringing in My Book Birthday! 🎉
It’s officially publication day for Writing It Real: Crafting a Reference Book that Sells! 📔💐
Copies available at Amazon and also (for signed copies) at my Etsy page.
Happy National Poetry Month! 🎉
Happy National Poetry Month! Excited to take part in @_jessicabates "buy nothing Poetry Month snail mail challenge." #buynothingpoetrymonthsnailmail
To poetry and sharing this April!
One Week Until My Next Book Birthday & Signed Copies Available! 🎉
Just one week to go until this beauty drops. Woot! I had to break out the red lipstick today to celebrate.
Order today at Amazon: clickety-click!
Signed copies also available at WritePathProductions, my Etsy shop. Ta-da!
More details about the book:
Ever wanted to write a nonfiction reference book? Curious about how to organize and develop your topic into an inviting, easy-to-use manuscript? Look no further!
Packed with tips, this book will walk you through insights into planning, writing, editing, pre-publication, and marketing your reference book, from pre-writing to post-publication.
To sweeten the day even more, my box of copies arrived from my awesome publisher, Vine Leaves Press, and I got to hold my first printed copies of my May-releasing book, From Promising to Published: A Multi-Genre, Insider’s Guide to the Publication Process. Pre-order now open for this charming new addition to my book family.
A double delight, so I had to share. 😊📚 #authorlife
Feeling Quote-ish 😁
"Teaching online is also great if you, like me, are an introvert who enjoys communication but also some personal space and time alone to replenish."
--From my latest book, Writing It Real: Creating an Online Course for Fun and Profit @vine_leaves_press .
Available at Amazon; signed copies available at my Etsy store: WritePathProductions.
My Article Published: "Delicious to Dish: 4 Ingredients That Make Food Writing Fabulous"
Excited that Women on Writing published my article today and to share it with you:
“Delicious to Dish: 4 Ingredients That Make Food Writing Fabulous”
Photo courtesy of Vincent Rivaud from Pexels
By: Melanie Faith
What does cooking and writing have in common? A richness of inviting language.
Think about the sheer number of words to describe something “delicious,” for instance. From “decadent” to “delectable” to “delightful” to “exquisite” and “appetizing” and “tasty” and “flavorful” and even “mouthwatering,” each word underscores a very particular quality about the dish.
Speaking of which, even the word “dish” has numerous shades of meaning, tones, and definitions that can lead to descriptive and delightful writing. From the cooking containers to the food itself to an attractive person to giving a friend the scoop by sharing gossip to punishing, as in “you can dish it out but you can’t take it,” the variety of descriptors, contexts, and diction choices make the pairing of writing and nourishment a natural fit. Much like ice cream and the waffle cone that conveys it, they can be a great symbiotic duo.
· Food writing has ample diction options. Our descriptions of the foods we stir, spoon, swirl, chew, or slurp tend to be precise and as varied as the salad of verbs we can choose from to denote how we compose or eat our meals and certainly how we feel or felt about them and/or the people who made them. One of the reasons writing about food is so fun is that there are endless words that bring our passion, distaste, or other emotions about making or eating food to vibrant life on the page.
· Food writing has point of view. Some types of writing are easier than others to denote a clear and strong point of view. Food writing tends to have a very focused and clear POV. For instance, people tend to have complicated relationships with certain foods, such as durian fruit or sauerkraut, and it’s often easy to spot the point of view and tone of the author—whether like, love, confusion, or loathing—often in the first few sentences.
· Food writing has theme. One of my favorite qualities about food writing is that however much the focus is on creating or imbibing or not relishing some eating experiences, it’s never ONLY about the foods at all. Much food writing is rich in setting, imagery, and contextual details that tell the readers something deeper about the speaker’s life or the characters’ lives. Food writing covers a dynamic array of topics, from cultural celebrations and birth stories to addiction, divorce, office romances, first jobs and first apartments, and you name it. Food is present at just about every turning point in our lives, so when writing about food we are presented with endless possibilities, not only for what dishes have meant in our lives in the past but also now and what it might mean in the future. Personal essays, recipes, chapbooks of stories or essays, and/or characters describing foods for children and grandchildren are all food writing. Just about any topic or theme you can imagine from your everyday life will have at least one ingredient, dish, meal, holiday recipe, or family barbecue/picnic/party or road trip associated with it that could make vivid and meaningful prose or poetry.
· Food writing is not genre restricted. We often think immediately of recipe books or cooking shows when we think of food writing, both of which are kinds of food writing, but that is just the very, very, very tip of the food-writing iceberg. Poems are also food writing. One-act plays with a dinner scene, also food writing. Restaurant reviews, too—food writing. Flash fiction and flash memoir and hybrid pieces, all food writing. Guess what: so are jokes, comedic essays, scenes from novels or novellas, and just about any other genre you can think of. If it has something about eating or being unable to eat, someone making something to eat and failing or succeeding at it, people congregating to eat, people rejecting what’s on the table to eat in favor of something else, the struggles of eating and cooking, people learning to cook, and so on, then it’s food writing. Period. The vast variety of food writing makes for especially fun writing and reading experiences.
Considering the rich themes, descriptive language, focused point of view, and genre possibilities, food writing is one of the most exciting writing experiences an author can have. Like a meal to savor, food writing invites a writer’s imagination, memories, and talents to the table, month after month, year after year.
***
My Food Writing class begins on Friday, April 8th. I’d love to have you and a friend join me for this delectable and fun class. Click for more details and the sign-up link.
One Month to Go! 🎊
Just one more month until my next book birthday @vine_leaves_press! Woot! 🎂🎯 Pre-order your copy of Writing It Real: Crafting a Reference Book that Sells at Amazon.
Upcoming Writing Class: Flash Writing! 📝
Super excited to offer my Flash Writing class this summer! Mark your calendars now, and I’d love to have you and a friend join me for this online workshop, starting Friday, July 1, 2022.
Sign-ups are now open.
More info: Featured Online Flash Writing Workshop: In a Flash!
I’ll be using the book I wrote on this topic, which is also available and handy-dandy for all writers, whether you’re in the market for a class or for a prompt-filled read to get those words flowing.
A Little Inspo for the Word Flow📝
Need a little inspo for the writing journey? I’ve got you.
Try: In a Flash!
Writing It Real: Creating an Online Course for Fun and Profit
The Portable Muse (prompt cards)
Writing It Real: Crafting a Reference Book That Sells (pre-order)
Upcoming Writing Class: Food Writing! 🍓
Who doesn’t love food?! 🥕🥔🥑
But what, exactly, is food writing?
It includes a diverse multitude of writing projects and styles to savor, including (but not limited to):
*fiction
*memoir
*review
*personal essay
*free-verse
*flash
*blog
*graphic novel
*recipe and/or cookbook
*haiku
No previous cooking or restaurant experience necessary for the class. If you relish words and the flavors of fabulous food (and haven’t we all?😋), this class welcomes you.
