-
2 months ago | 
courtneymaum.substack.com | Courtney Maum |M. L. Rio
Welcome to Before and After the Book Deal, a reader-supported publication that teaches you to write better while gaining insights about the publishing industry at large. To get the full experience from this newsletter, consider joining our community of 37K+ subscribers. Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. You can listen to an audio voiceover of this story using the above link.
-
2 months ago | 
courtneymaum.substack.com | Courtney Maum |M. L. Rio |Elizabeth Austin |Brittany Chaffee
Hello and happy Wednesday. Is anyone else watching the TV series “Young Sheldon”? Young Sheldon is the prequel to “The Big Bang Theory” which ran from 2007 to 2019. (“Young Sheldon started in 2017 and wrapped up last spring in 2024.)My daughter referred to Young Sheldon as “her show” for a while, retreating to her bedroom to watch it until one night, we watched it with her, and now we’re all obsessed. (How obsessed?
-
Nov 8, 2024 | 
electricliterature.com | M. L. Rio
“All academia is dark academia.” I said it without thinking, a knee-jerk reaction to a literary label that had been assigned to me but always felt ill-fitting. Until that moment—discussing my first novel, If We Were Villains,with the Folger Shakespeare Library book club—I hadn’t really understood why. It was the “dark” modifier I disliked. Not because what I’d written wasn’t dark, but because darkness is so intrinsic to academic life that it struck me as unforgivably redundant.
-
Nov 5, 2024 | 
courtneymaum.substack.com | Courtney Maum |M. L. Rio
A heads up to my readers, I recorded this video introduction on Monday November 4th knowing that if I post as I normally do on Wednesday, we might—or more likely might not—know who our 48th president is going to be. I don’t know how you have been handling the stress, vitriol, angst and desperation of the last weeks/months/years/century, but one of the ways I cope is by writing, and thinking about my writing, and teaching others how to write.
-
Oct 5, 2024 | 
barnesandnoble.com | M.L. Rio |M. L. Rio |Isabelle McConville
I’ve Always Been Drawn to Group Stories: A Guest Post by M.L. Rio By M.L. Rio / October 5, 2024 at 1:40 am After the breakout success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, readers have been waiting with bated breath for M.L. Rio’s next project — and it’s finally here. Our Monthly Pick author has penned an exclusive essay for us on her writing process, what draws her to writing ensembles and the origins of Graveyard Shift, down below. Paperback $16.99 Please enable javascript to add items...
-
Oct 4, 2024 | 
crimereads.com | M.L. Rio |M. L. Rio
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Article continues after advertisementDreams are one of those things professors and editors and more seasoned writers all tell you not to write about. It’s a day-one “don’t,” right up there with adverbs and any speaker tag other than “said.” It’s willfully unrealistic to write characters who don’t dream, but dreams in fiction often function as a clumsy storytelling shortcut.
-
Oct 1, 2024 | 
barnesandnoble.com | Isabelle McConville |M. L. Rio |Daniel Mason |John Scalzi
October is finally here! In between trips to the pumpkin patch and Halloween costume shopping, stop by one of our stores and flip through this month’s incredible picks. From a spooky, undead novella to a literary jaunt through the decades, the story of a feline fiend to timeless advice from ancient minds, October’s Monthly Picks are hard to beat. Please enable javascript to add items to the cart. Please enable javascript to add items to the cart.
-
Sep 27, 2024 | 
lithub.com | M.L. Rio |M. L. Rio
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Article continues after advertisementDreams are one of those things professors and editors and more seasoned writers all tell you not to write about. It’s a day-one “don’t,” right up there with adverbs and any speaker tag other than “said.” It’s willfully unrealistic to write characters who don’t dream, but dreams in fiction often function as a clumsy storytelling shortcut.
-
Sep 24, 2024 | 
bookbrowse.com | M. L. Rio
BookBrowse Review
BookBrowse
As each character remains awake all night, Rio explores the debilitating psychological impact of sleep deprivation... For all its dark elements, however, much of the novella has a charming and nostalgic quality. The setting of a historic church; the macabre goings on; the charismatic amateur sleuths—this is classic cozy crime.
-
Aug 21, 2024 | 
barnesandnoble.com | Isabelle McConville |Heather Fawcett |M. L. Rio |Paul Murray
In a bracing work of memoir, philosophy and social commentary, Naomi Klein, author of the seminal No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, mines the paradoxes of modern culture—a wild-west world of avatars, conspiracy theories and baffling alliances between opposing world views—to take measure of the carnival “mirror” threatening meaningful political discourse and democracy.
