Eighteen-year-old Laila Piedra is a biracial aspiring author whose creative writing teacher always told her she has a special talent, so when he suddenly dies and is replaced by Nadiya Nazarenko, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who is sadistically critical and perpetually unimpressed, Laila grows obsessed with gaining the woman's approval and is led to believe she must choose between perfection and sanity, but rejecting her all-powerful mentor may...

"Abandoned by her mother at age seven, Alexandra Winslow takes solace in the mysteries she reads with her devoted father--and soon she is writing them herself, slowly graduating to dark, complex crime stories that reflect skill, imagination, and talent far beyond her years. After her father's untimely death, at fourteen Alex is taken in by the nuns of a local convent, where she finds twenty-six mothers to take the place of the one she lost, and the...

"Stella Endicott loves her teacher, Miss Liliana, and she is thrilled when the class is assigned to write a poem. Stella crafts a beautiful poem about Mercy Watson, the pig who lives next door--a poem complete with a metaphor and full of curiosity and courage. But Horace Broom, Stella's irritating classmate, insists that Stella's poem is full of lies and that pigs do not live in houses. And when Stella and Horace get into a shouting match in the classroom,...

Learn the mystery of character, character dictating plot, character information, biographies, real characters vs. fictional characters, writing a franchise character, rules to break and not to break. Subjects covered include: Who should be your protagonist? Does plot or character come first? How do you find the right characters to suit your needs? How do you get a character to do what you want? How to you get your characters to do what they want?

1890, Atlanta. Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night she moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, "Dear Miss Sweetie." When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society's ills, but she's not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race...

Trisha wants to write something that will please her demanding writing teacher, who is rumored to have never given a student an A.

Examines current debates about the actual authors of Shakespeare's plays, citing challenges from famous historical figures while discussing the sources of modern doubts and the author's own beliefs.

For the would-be screenwriter, seven easy steps to a better story.

Maya, a young American on the run, is sent to Chilo,̌ in a remote part of Chile, her grandmother's homeland, where she records in her diary her adjustment to a new country, her drug problems, her romantic life, and other developments.