I just made 30+ minor edits to Warming Up, the novel which will be published by She Writes Press in the fall. This is after my agent sent her 30+ “pick-ups” over the weekend–little things like commas, and extra spaces, and the occasional clunker of a word. This, after the thing has been read word-for-word...Read More

I’m happy to report her that yesterday I signed a publishing agreement with She Writes Press for my novel, “Warming Up” about a singer who doesn’t sing, a sculptor who doesn’t sculpt, and a homeless teenager who sings in subways and helps them both face their creative demons. Don’t have a publication date yet, but...Read More

Women writers among you have probably already heard about She Writes new self-publishing press. What makes it different–and this is an idea I worked on in a project dubbed Chicago Public Press that we had trouble getting funded–is the vetting of manuscripts. It’s self-publishing, but not for every manuscript, so if you read a She...Read More

June 22, 2012 By Mary Hutchings Reed   We started to begin last month, and didn’t get past beginning to commence to begin. Are you ready now? In the past couple of months, you’ve limbered up with morning pages, started your writer’s journal and probably read a little too much about how to write your...Read More

My friend Leilani Garrett’s first novel, After the Burn, is being shopped in NYC this week, and we are excited for her and jealous as hell!  I have a wonderful agent who believes in my work and has sent it out, but it’s a tough market out there for mainstream literary fiction by first time...Read More

For Mike, and everyone considering self-publishing:  My first novel, Courting Kathleen Hannigan, was a disappointment to literary agents.  I was a lawyer.  I was female.  I was from Chicago.  Unread, they’d anointed me the next Scottie Turow or at least Scottolini.  But I let them down.  I’d written a novel about the life of a...Read More

  Mary helped her niece pick out the flowers for her May 11 wedding, and in the process got to try on the florist’s extensive collection of crowns.  They suited her immensely!Read More

I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week getting entries ready for some contests with May 1  deadlines: stories, novellas, novels in progress, novels.  The entry fees are usualy $15, but some go as high as $40.  It’s a terrible business. You don’t hear for months, and then often the announcement is “we had 768...Read More

I’m so grateful to have the support of writer, editor, friend, blogger and, as it used to say on her business card–(it may still)–bon vivant and ranconteur, Author! Author!, Anne Mini.  If you’ve ever wondered  whether you should go to a writers’ conference, Anne Mini would be #1 on my Top Ten List.  We met...Read More

I’m going to start blogging!  The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin asked me to contribute to their Nonbillable Hours page once a month (4th Fridays), which will give me a chance to write  about something I am very interested in, and have come to know a lot about:  making the transition from being a legal writer...Read More