It's that time of year, when we rack our brains trying to figure out our gift list. Last year I shared a list of gifts for your favorite socially savvy author (or for you, if you are aspiring to be one!)

Last month at DeadDarlings, we were lucky enough to speak to two authors about their debut works. Ladee Hubbard told us about what led to The Talented Ribkins (Melville House, 2017) and Arif Anwar shared how he wrote The Storm, (HarperCollins/Simon & Schuster May 2018).

Ladee: What did it take to get The Talented Ribkins sold and onto the bookshelves?

In this post, GrubStreet Instructor Ben Berman models the process of how journaling and free writing can help you figure out the subject beneath your subject.

It’s two in the morning when your five-year-old wakes you up and tells you that her belly is too full to sleep.

Try lying on your left side, you say. But she insists that she is going to be sick.

In the "Books that Made You" series, we're taking a look at the books that made us who we are. For this edition of our "Books That Made You Series," we asked you what book made you return to them. After scrutinizing our highly scientific social media poll, we present to you this non-exhaustive list of books that lure us back time and again.

Katrin Schumann asks, what happens when, after a long time writing and editing, you once again find yourself at the beginning of an entirely new project?

Some of you have been writing for a long time, and you likely have a manuscript or two going already. You may be astonished by how long it's taking to get your writing to where you want it to be—and perhaps you're learning about the utterly transformative power of deep editing.