Real Writers Top Eight

Real Writers Top Six




Why AREN’T you attending “ One-Day MFA ”? Got a good excuse, do you?



Fabulous piece by Angela Ackerman here on How To Write Inner Conflict .



A tidy compilation of advice from Raymond Carver . Including this gem: “At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing—a sunset or an old shoe—in absolute and simple amazement.”



I’m thrilled to have a short story (“The Cistern”) in the new RMFW anthology, Without Brakes, Fingers Crossed. Now available to order ! Congratulations to editors Paul Martz and Linda Ditchkus for all their hard work pulling this together. 



If you would like to help with the production of the Rocky Mountain Writer podcast, please reach out!



And thanks to Kirk Rafferty for the snazzy new podcast graphic!



Oh, yes, speaking of Angie Hodapp (who is leading the One-Day MFA on June 22), here’s a great quote from her recent conversation on the podcast: “There’s a lot of writers out there who can write very beautifully. Gorgeous, gorgeous writing. Zero plot. Right? And there’s writers who can deliver a beat-by-beat story. That’s flat as a board. I see both in the slush pile day after day. So I’m hoping that this workshop will provide that opportunity, like every fiction writer, no matter the length of the story you’re trying to tell should take a screen writing plot class to learn structure and pacing—and beginnings and middles and ends … and they should take a poetry class to just learn the beauty of language. If you’re both of those things you’re going to you’re going to be heading shoulders above the of folks in the field.”



Structure. Poetry. Where do you live?



Mark Stevens

Mark Stevens is the author of the The Fireballer (Lake Union, 2023) and The Allison Coil Mystery Series including Antler Dust, Buried by the Roan, Trapline, Lake of Fire, and The Melancholy Howl. Trapline won The Colorado Book Award for Best Mystery. Stevens has also published short stories in Denver Noir (Akashic Books, 2022), Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Tribune, among others. Stevens is longtime member of Mystery Writers of America. In 2023, Stevens was named Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers for the second time. He lives in southwest Colorado.