Archive - Woman of Letters

Highbrow literature has acquired a fandom. To succeed, writers need to manage it.

Recently I hung out for a few hours with one of my readers: Arjun. This man, Arjun, is a twenty-three year old engineer who reads three literary…

Jun 10 •

Somebody will have to pay for this

One weekend, Johanna attended her very first Edgy Dangerous Iconoclastic Truthteller (EDIT) conference.

Jun 5 •

Even studio executives have ambition. We should be thankful for it.

One thing that people often say is, "Why does nobody write about work, business, labor, economics, capitalism?

Jun 3 •

May 2025

The Samuel Richardson Prize For Best Self-Published Literary Novel (or Story Collection)

Contest rules and guidelines

May 29 •

If your book has shallow, lifeless characters, you've got to work twice as hard to make them interesting

Last year I spent an enjoyable week reading several of Christopher Lasch’s books. Lasch was a late 20th-century history professor best known for his…

May 27 •

Where did you come from?

May 24 •

The college students who can't read good anymore

Miranda's dad was the headmaster of a well-known prep school, and his latest education obsession was with restricting his students’ use of AI.

May 22 •

All of my literary success is due to reading this one classic text

Whenever a post goes viral and I gain a new burst of readers, I have to break in and remind people that actually…this is a Great Books blog.

May 20 •

How to live well on a $100,000 advance

After graduation, Darren failed to find employment in his chosen career (journalism), so he moved back to his parent's house.

May 15 •

The New Yorker reviewed my self-published novella

Substack summer has begun

May 13 •

Women's fiction still gets ignored

When I was first trying to write professionally, I had a very simple understanding of genre.

May 11 •

Prestige is what separates writing from content

I had a crazy experience recently.

May 10 •

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