The Loft Blog

Journalist and novelist John DeDakis is a former White House correspondent and senior copy editor on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. DeDakis is the author of five novels in the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense series. A native of La Crosse, Wisconsin, DeDakis now lives in Baltimore.

You know who you are. You know that marketing is part of the writing process, but you loathe it. Maybe you even fear it. You’re much more at home being . . . well . . . at home—just you and your laptop. Connecting with other people can sometimes be dreadful and draining. I’ve been there.

Having endless sparks of inspiration is a gift many creatives have. Although that blessing is at times a curse—especially when each new intention sidetracks us from actually sitting down to do the work. I too have several ideas brewing about how to expand my writing career in 2022.

Allie Rigby is a San Francisco Bay Area poet and outdoor educator with roots in the chaparral suburbs of southern California. In 2020, Allie was granted a Literary Arts Residency through the Shuffle Collective, which further inspired her to pursue her MA in creative writing.

Crystal Hana Kim's novel If You Leave Me opens with three teenagers living in a refugee camp in Korea in 1951 and follows them for many years after the war, as two of them settle into a bad marriage and all three into some serious regrets. I'm interested in a scene early on.

Everybody is expecting presents soon. Pressure mounts. With each passing day, more and more Maria Carey songs are added to store playlists. Soon it will be an all-encompassing mission; what to get for who?

Papa Mbye just made his first ever album, and it's really good. The Loft talks with Papa about his artistic process, working in multiple mediums at once, and the reasons why Minneapolis sounds like nowhere else.

On December 8, we officially announced the Loft's new executive director, Arleta M. Little. Read on to learn more about her and find links to stories on her hire published by other media outlets.

Writers may be passionate about writing, but a fair number also abhor social media. Instead of feeling inspired by the wealth of information available via a quick scroll on their mobile device, many feel overwhelmed, disheartened, and/or perplexed.

Premee Mohamed's Beneath the Rising is about two teenagers, Nick and Johnny, who inadvertently awaken The Ancient Ones and must race around the world to save humanity. It's also about good and evil, the perils of transactional relationships, and what makes friendship real.

There is an age-old conundrum confronting writers of personal essays and memoirs. Should the writer change the names of persons who may come off negatively in the piece, or should the subjects be identified? I have done both during my five-decade writing career.

Ellen Birkett Morris is an award-winning, multigenre writer, teacher, and editor based in Louisville, Kentucky. Morris is the author of the forthcoming short story collection Lost Girls (TouchPoint Press) and of Surrender (Finishing Line Press).