Tell stories

Learn the craft

Embrace the suck

“Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a very dirty peanut across the floor with your nose.”

- Joyce Carol Oates

Passion: writing.

Principles:

  • The story is paramount

  • A good story can be buried by bad writing

  • You can’t do it on your own

  • A trusted community is priceless

  • There will be many troughs, and few peaks

  • Keep submitting; only 3 out of 100 submissions will be accepted

Paradox:

You will only get better at writing by writing; however, continued bad writing will not result in improvement

Pro Forma Biography

C.J. Friend is the author of numerous fiction and nonfiction works, with recent publications in New Maps and Black Sheep Magazine. He has also self-published three short story collections. Notably, he was a finalist for the 2014 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and a semi-finalist for the same competition in 2015. 

When not writing, his insatiable curiosity gets him into all kinds of trouble. But he can’t resist peeking around the corner into the unknown.