There’s a great series going on at Steven Pressfield’s blog about the inside workings of the publishing industry. If you want to know what happens in the time between when an author finishes a book and when it hits the shelves or what to do when the publisher’s not in the room, here you go.

All about dialog tags – but all you really need to know is only use ‘said’ and ‘asked’ in whatever tense is appropriate. Readers skip over them. Oh, and no need for adverbs. Set up the action properly and the reader will hear the dialog in their head as intended. Step away from the exclamation points! Seriously.  You don’t need them most of the time. One per hundred pages, tops.

Writing Forward has tips on writing and grammar.

Since the Antioch residency is going on right now and last night I hoisted a glass with some old classmates after great readings from the current graduating class, here’s Tod Goldberg (who is not at Antioch, but is a very amusing gentleman and heads up a great low res program at UC Riverside Palm Desert: MFA Programs Killed My Father: The Last Word On MFA Program Exposes!