The Need for a Writing Community

Our Founding Director, M. M. De Voe has just returned from a Writer’s Forum in Vilnius, Lithuania, where she was engaged in many eye-opening conversations about community among writers. Our guiding values at Pen Parentis are inclusion, professionalism, balance, and yes, COMMUNITY. We know that writers need support, not just financial and time-to-write, but also […]

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Dystopian Future of Publishing

I’m reeling. I was at a cell phone service store today, chatting with the staff while waiting to deal with a billing question and my guy noticed my email address. “Are you a writer? Carlos is a writer,” says my guy, “Well, not exactly a writer. A publisher.” “Carlos” (name changed, obviously) is a heavyset, laughing, youthful […]

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Writing Groups

SO, writing groups. What are they and how can you get one? Writing groups are a little like a workshop without a teacher. Of course, the easiest way to get feedback on your work is to sign up for a writing workshop (or if you are just starting a career, a writing class.) Thing is, […]

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Want help? Give it. Part 2.

Face it, there’s a reason you’re not getting an agent: it’s not because your writing sucks. If your writing sucked, you wouldn’t be getting encouraging emails from agents saying they are sure it will find a market at some point. You would be getting only standard boring-as-hell, form-rejection letters that probably don’t have your name […]

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