Q: I wrote a biography about my mother’s life. After reading it, a couple of people mentioned that certain sections of the book were difficult to read. The book does address topics like trauma and suicide because those were realities in my mother’s life. What do you think about content that could trigger some readers? Should there be some type of warning?

I’m currently wrapping up the spring semester of my life story writing classes. Thanks to a student request, for the past fifteen weeks I’ve been giving my students weekly tips for crafting more interesting and elegant sentences. Here’s the final list.

While authors may get themselves through the publishing process just fine, many of us lose steam and confidence as soon as our books are published. We’re no longer working with the writing groups, editors, designers, and publishing assistants whose help and encouragement kept us motivated and on task. Now, it’s just us, our books, and the launch we were too busy with book creation to have planned or even considered. This post about planning the perfect book launch event is for authors on all publication pathways.