Courtney Maum and Matthew Salesses Have Some Craft Advice for You By Rachel Krantz | Jan 07, 2021
Every so often, a book comes along that feels like an act of charity directed straight at the heart. As a debut author awaiting the publication of my first book,
Anything But Monogamy (Harmony), for me, there were two recent books about the craft of writing that felt that way, and both were published by Catapult: Courtney Maum’s funny and honest guide
(January 2021).
Maum’s guide offers debut and aspiring authors the kind of blunt truths that even an agent or editor might be hesitant to disclose. To achieve this level of candor, Maum interviewed many insiders anonymously while employing a funny and practical tone. Salesses’s book, like Maum’s, should be considered required reading for any writer or editor. Its first part is an extremely helpful dissection of implicit biases in traditional Western “rules” of craft and structure; its second half i
Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, a lot of folks have decided that city life is no longer for them. There’s been a whole new demand for rural homes as people discover it’s not so fun to live in a tiny apartment with no yard, 3 children, and two parents all working from and learning from home.
However, an essay on Medium pointed out that a lot of these former urbanites may not have thought things through. Courtney Maum wrote of a scenario that many of us who have lived in the boonies can clearly imagine:
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Sure, the last year has been an absolute dumpster fire, but I suppose there have been a fewwwww positives to riding out the quar. Who else threw it back to medieval times and learned how to make bread from scratch? Or did you spend one whole weekend mastering Beyoncé-level TikTok choreo? If you ve been lucky enough to work from home during the pandemic (thank you, essential workers ), you ve likely found yourself with ample time on your hands and the desire to do something other than watch endless hours of Netflix.
Remember how in March 2020, all those jokes about using lockdown to write the next great American novel were circulating on Insta? I def had high hopes for what I would accomplish with all my free time.until reality set in and I remembered that ambitious projects like, I don t know, becoming the Jane Austen of my generation, require a sh t-ton of discipline.