Writing Contest: Similes Make Food Writing Fun

June 17, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve held a food writing contest on this blog, so I thought I’d blast out another one, just for fun. This time, let’s have a simile writing contest.
Similes are comparisons that starts with “like” or “as,” for comparing two unlike things. Why would you want to use them? You need [...]

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An Artist and Her Process: No Words Necessary

June 14, 2010

Last week I walked around a San Francisco art gallery with an artist friend. An abstract painter, Kimetha had a solo show of small oils on wood. As I admired her images, I thought about how different we were as painter and writer.
As a word person, I immediately reached for words to explain my reactions [...]

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Are Blog Giveaways a Good Idea?

June 9, 2010

I’m still deciding on whether giveaways are right for my blog about food writing.
On one hand, giveaways (mine are almost always books) drive traffic to my blog and bring page views to the site. Both those things are valuable. And I like to give a reader recognition and appreciation. It’s fun to get return emails [...]

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7 More Most Common Recipe Writing Errors

June 7, 2010

People get worked up about recipe writing on this blog, me included. It used to be that my posts on taking freebies got the most responses, but now my “Most Popular” list (on the right) is mostly about recipes.
So excuse me for pandering to the crowd, but I spent all last week editing recipes written [...]

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Snaps from My Seattle Food Writing Class

June 2, 2010

A few Saturdays ago I taught a day-long class on food writing to about 50 people (about half of whom were bloggers, and some of whom drove up from Portland) at the oh-so-chic Seattle Fairmont Olympic. Keren Brown of Foodportunity organized the event and invited me. Professional photographer and blogger Jackie Donnelly Baisa wrote a post about [...]

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Inside an Author’s Cookbook Advance and Expenses

June 1, 2010

One of the benefits of being a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals is the insider information I get in the monthly teleforum for the Editors, Publishers and Writers section.
Recently a first-time cookbook author provided  real numbers about her experience. That’s rare.
While I can’t direct you to the presentation, I can give you [...]

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