News — writing
Writing in the time of COVID-19
Amy Leibowitz COVID-19 writing writing encouragement
These are strange times we’re living in. I wouldn’t have thought this would happen in my lifetime. And yet, here we are.
Because I have teenage children, our house is usually a flurry of activity. Someone always has somewhere to go. I work from home, but everyone else is usually out of the house by 7:15am (if not earlier some days). Then there are after school sports and theater, plus evening activities. It can feel as if we don’t rest at all!
Now we’re all home, all the time, aside from walking our...
Point of View: What lesfic has meant to me
Amy Leibowitz bisexual fiction bisexuality bisexuals books coming soon lesbian books lesbian fiction lesbian novels lesbians own voices queer women representation wlw books women women who love women writing
The first LGBTQIA+ book I read wasn’t gay literature or MM romance.
That might come as a surprise to people. Most of my books thus far have had relationships between men (and occasionally between men and nonbinary folks). My publishing career started with a book that included a romance between two men.
MM Romance and other gay fiction are pretty prominent in LGBTQIA+ publishing. One might assume the reason I wrote my first novel was an extensive history of reading and writing about men.
One would be wrong.
All of my firsts have been books about...
NaNoWriMo: Midway point!
Amy Leibowitz nanowrimo National Novel Writing Month writing writing advice writing encouragement
Happy Friday, and happy mid-National Novel Writing Month to those who are participating.
This is “over the hump” day, the halfway mark where, for many of us, things begin to flow. We’ve figured out who the Big Bad is, or we know what our hero has to do to finish strong. We’ve had an aha! moment. Words pour out of us like water, and we’re ready to go the distance.
Maybe.
Or maybe we’re ready to scrap the last 25k words because they sound like nonsense, endless babble that goes nowhere....
What If We Do Wait?
Amy Leibowitz culture own voices representation sensitivity social justice writing
Recently, I shared the above meme. The text of the main point reads:
Some people took this to mean hetero-washing or...
Can we use singular “they”?
Amy Leibowitz editing grammar writing writing advice
Ah, the ever-present debate: Is singular they/them grammatically acceptable?
Short answer: Yes.
And now for the longer answer.
It’s a bit more complicated than this, but use of singular they has been around for centuries. The context is different from how we use it now, meaning that probably very few if any English-speakers were using they as a personal pronoun. It’s safe to say, though, that this contemporary use is born from the long history of using it when gender is unknown or irrelevant. For example, “Someone left their umbrella here...