How To End a Story – One Minute Wisdom via The Open Notebook

The fabulous writing how-to site The Open Notebook recently asked a bunch of writers what their single best piece of writing advice was. My 58-second answer had to do with how to end a story:

Single Best Dobbs from The Open Notebook on Vimeo.

As I note in the interview, I picked up this nugget from Atavist co-founder Evan Ratliff, who suggested it to me while I was writing (and he editing) My Mother’s Lover, my account of my mother’s secret WWII romance, which went on to become a #1-selling Kindle Single.

This and much more writerly goodness is at The Open Notebook. .

How David Quammen Gets The Goods: An Interview

The wonderful shop-talk site for science writers, The Open Notebook, just published the first of two interviews I did recently with author David Quammen about how he researched and wrote his magnificent new book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. This first installment covers how Quammen gathers the raw materials for his work; next week’s […]

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Deconstructing “My Mother’s Lover”

The Open Notebook, begun last fall,  interviews writers to see how they research and write longform nonfiction pieces. Its entries include conversations with Steven Silberman about writing about placebos, Slate’s William Saletan on memory,  Robin Henig on anxiety, Hilary Rosner on scarce fish, and Carl Zimmer about inner ecosystems. I had the pleasure of talking with […]

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