If you are a blogger, the odds are you have been going through the same experience as me. If that’s the case, keep reading. There is good news and hope at the end IF YOU’RE A REGULAR VISITOR, you’ll have… Read More ›
Writers and Writing
Books, writers, and the art of writing by Wayne K. Spear
Dear Mister Captain—please let me on the life boat
NOTE—This piece is based on a writing assignment in the book 642 Things to Write About, published by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto: “Only ten people will fit in the life raft. Convince the Captain that you should be one… Read More ›
Full Circle: download and read the story here
Follow me on Twitter. Find my latest book, Residential Schools: with the Images and Words of Survivors, here.
An open letter to Stephen King
I‘VE JUST FINISHED On Writing. It’s been years since I’ve read one of your books, and I enjoyed this one enough that I’ll be reading another soon. We have some things in common. Like you, I started a satirical magazine… Read More ›
Reasons you should start a blog. And me destroying them.
I GOT CURIOUS about my odds. The biggest lottery in Canada? I have about a one-in-15-million shot at that. Weirdly enough, there are smaller lotteries in this country where my odds are only half that, or one-in-twenty-eight-million. It’s far more… Read More ›
5 tell-tale warning signs that you may be a writer
Warning: you may be a writer! WHAT IS A WRITER? The screen shot above has some suggestions: writers are crazy, forgetful and always selling someone out. Now, I’m a writer and I must object to this libel. I am not… Read More ›
5 common mistakes made by writers
IF YOU READ this little website of mine, you probably know I’m a fan of science and that I talk about sciency and logically things all the time. My partner Nicole follows IFLScience, where they have some science gift ideas… Read More ›
The ghost writer of Christmases past
DECEMBER 1st has arrived, and here at the ranch that means it’s time to light the advent candle!
1/2 of self-published authors earn under $500: I’ve figured out how not to be one of them
WELCOME to Christmas, the time of year when people dress up like serious adults, to go to staff parties where they act like drunken toddlers.
RTRPARD at 20: Yes, I have a book that’s old enough to buy booze
LATER THIS MONTH, I’ll be releasing a special 20th anniversary edition of my 1994 hit collection of stories entitled Real Things Real People Are Really Doing. Available as a download at waynekspear.com—for a limited time only!—this 20th anniversary edition will… Read More ›
Life Itself, a review
I WAS NOT A devotee of Roger Ebert, but Life Itself makes me wish I’d paid more attention to a career that transversed more than five decades.
Death and Language
AN EDITOR ASKED ME not long ago if I might change the word “died” to “passed away” in something I’d written of a late and mutual friend. I respectfully said No, and here’s why.
Jeremy Paxman and Poetry’s Bad Rap
A GUARDIAN UK article, written by Alison Flood and published over the weekend, quotes the Forward prize judge and TV presenter Jeremy Paxman as wishing aloud that “poetry ‘would raise its game a little bit, raise its sights’, and ‘aim to… Read More ›
