by Amelia Loken | Oct 24, 2026 | Hope
I live in the South. Temperatures had been in the 90s the past month. Then last Friday, the high was only 60 degrees. It felt like Mother Nature flipped the switch between summer and autumn overnight. With the cooler weather, I noticed the sunrise arriving a little...
by Amelia Loken | Oct 18, 2026 | Writing Craft
By the time I picked up Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer, I had become a devoted student of writing craft. I’d spent years learning about structure, pacing, character arcs, plot points, and story milestones. Books like Story Engineering, Save the Cat!, and Story...
by Amelia Loken | Oct 10, 2026 | Writing
At a recent writing conference, an aspiring author asked literary agent, Heidi Gordon, about current market trends. After giving the initial caveats, she answered: “Everyone loves mash-ups right now.” She rattled off some intentionally ridiculous...
by Amelia Loken | Oct 3, 2026 | Writing Conferences
There is a distinct flavor of euphoria that belongs exclusively to the final afternoon of a writing conference. Your notebook is packed with game-changing insights, your chest is buzzing with that kinetic fission of hope, and your heart is full after days of hugging...
by Amelia Loken | Sep 27, 2026 | Writing Craft
When I first picked up Story Genius by Lisa Cron, I was in the middle of an intense season of studying story structure. My critique group and I were learning to think like engineers, dissecting manuscripts with terms like Midpoint, First Plot Point, and character arc....
