The Loft Blog

I love how we linger on it for a moment, before it connects to a body, before it connects, specifically, to Lele’s body. Or is it her body?

Getting published isn't a one-size-fits-all journey. From literary journals to independent presses and self-publishing support, Minnesota offers countless paths for writers. Explore our Minnesota Publishers resource and discover which one might be right for your work.

It’s hard to stay in the writing when money, boundaries, and paperwork keep tugging at the edges of the day. The steady path is a light, repeatable one: choose a few tools, review them on a set schedule, and keep refining the routine instead of rebuilding everything the moment stress hits.

What do you want to write? Who do you want to write for? A successful writing career starts with more than great craft. It starts with a plan. Here's where to begin.

Five Minnesota writers received $25,000 each in recognition of their outstanding work.

Nuria Sheehan is a queer writer who ended up in Kentucky with a pit bull and a pickup. She’s worked at the intersection of words and websites for over two decades and has taught English language learners, MFA candidates, and incarcerated students.

"If the outline was too detailed, I might have missed the sparks along the way that inspired me to create a new delicious twist. Always leave yourself the freedom to explore a new path, no matter how certain you are of where the story is going to go."

"When you put on a play, you get to build the sets ahead of time. But in fiction the world must be constructed as the reader watches, sentence by sentence, line by line."

Jennifer Pearson, Rachel Peterson, and Dinesh Thiruon speak to how they developed original tales that were suspense-filled enough to snag book deals.

“Editors weren’t passing on my pitches because they weren’t punchy or timely enough; editors passed because book lovers are in the middle of a literal machine-made assault on literature.”

A yacht chef and a Caribbean chef-owner compare notes: Abby Cheshire and Rawlston Williams on building debut cookbooks.

Mystery and calculus have more in common than you might think. But what can quantum physics teach us about fiction?