As I mentioned last week, today is the official launch day of a new book, Letters to Me: Conversations With a Younger Self. About half-way through the book, you’ll stumble across my name, and my letter to a younger Eric in which I try to give him a little advice about the long transition into adulthood. (Spoiler alert: He doesn’t listen.) I’m very happy to have been asked by the book’s editor, Dan Schmidt, to be a part of this project. The other contributors come from a wide

There’s an oft-quoted adage, “Write what you know!” which is simultaneously true and untrue. It is untrue because, as fiction writers, we are constantly adding details and experiences we don’t know from personal experience. Certain truths underpin our prose, but we express those things through characters and events and surroundings we don’t know from first-hand knowledge. It’s called “Writing the Other” and we do it all the time. But, on another level, the old adage is true.

I had big plans for the summer. I really did. After I left the May writing residency at Queens University of Charlotte, this is what I planned to accomplish: Deep revision of the first 1/3 of my novel (Chapters 1-5 as it now stands) Finish first draft of the second 1/3 of the novel (it is about 80% written, but needs a lot of work, and a lot of “connections” work…) Edit and finish two short stories workshopped at the May residency and ready them for submission to literary mag