Yes, it can be a delicious experience, and you sure can't beat the prices, but restaurant reviews are work, too. Here are some tips on the right ingredients.

Widowed at 30 with five children, our writer completed a college degree and began a long teaching career. Somewhere in there she found time to publish short articles and then novels.

When a writer put down her camera, she realized the value of a thousand words.

Here are five steps to follow to create a poetic sequence on a subject that is close to your heart, and from multiple angles.

Can we put this little nightmare behind us already? Unfortunately, no. A wordsmith offers some modern rules to live by for one of grammar’s knottiest questions.

To give your story an authentic flavor, get in touch with experts and travel if you can, says our bestselling thriller writer.

Always hungry for success, storytellers have latched onto the popularity of zombies. A top practitioner tells you why, and advises you how to put these “mindless monsters” to work.

Laura Lippman, the Edgar Award-winning mystery writer, worked her way out of newspaper reporting with drive and a demanding schedule.

Two writers debate the pros and cons. Blogs, says one, give writers an easy, cheap way to promote and build their platforms. Hold on, says a dissenting writer—blogging is overrated in many ways, the most obvious being that you don’t get paid.

A veteran story writer offers a process for mining your fiction for rich figurative material.

One novelist found that it improved her word choice and tightened her prose.

Are you unwittingly saying more than you think—or want to—in your treatment of characters of other races?

Thinking about self-publishing? It may be a good way to meet a need or grow a career.

A freelancer shares an approach that led him to multiple sales—and an alligator farmer, chicken catcher, and renegade wild hog.

Here’s an article-writer’s guide to locating sources and understanding studies and statistics.

Put your passion for health into print by starting small and local.

The spotlight is on the journal Monkeybicycle, describing its tone and preferences.

A Web-hosting service just for writers, plus other literary notes, an excerpt from a writing book, and Lisa Shearin's regular bimonthly column on fiction writing.

A review of The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English by Roy Peter Clark.

A review of Poetry in Person: Twenty-five Years of Conversation With America's Poets, edited by Alexander Neubauer.

This month, a list of markets in these areas: agents; literary, military and mystery/detective magazines; and publishers. Plus conferences and contests, and tips from editors at The Iowa Review and Rio Grande Review.