Balancing What You Want to Say with What Readers Want to Read to Increase Your Chances of Publication
Selected Essays by Joe Ponepinto
Orca senior editor Joe Ponepinto has been writing and editing creative work for most of his adult life. He’s also written essays and blogs on craft for the past fifteen years. Some of them have appeared here on the Orca website, and others on the sites of prominent industry bloggers. His new book, Reader Centered Writing, is a collection of the best of these essays, designed to help emerging and established writers better understand the relationship between writer and reader, to balance what they want to say with reader expectations. Included are essays on basic writing conventions, advanced techniques, and musings on the writing life in a section called Adventures in the Slushpile. There are also several new essays included.
What Writers Say About Reader Centered Writing
Reader Centered Writing encourages writers to delve into themselves, each other, and the world, and expresses the importance of trusting our own voices, but also the significance of humility. Joe Ponepinto encourages us to think outside of our perceived illusory understanding of the world and ourselves, and calls attention to the importance of intention but also of subtlety. –Ai Jiang Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, a Nebula Award finalist, and an immigrant from Fujian. She is the author of Linghun and I Am Ai. Her work can also be found in F&SF, The Dark, Uncanny, The Masters Review, among others.
Joe Ponepinto’s mentorship has been instrumental in my author journey, and Reader Centered Writing encapsulates that wisdom brilliantly. This book is more than an investment—it’s a masterclass in crafting stories that resonate with readers, elevating your writing from being merely read to being truly felt. – Christine Daigle Christine Daigle is the co-author of the traditionally published steampunk novel, The Emerald Key, and two sci-fi and horror serials/series, The Molecule Thief and Dark is a Way, under the pen name LP Styles.
Joe is a thoroughly modern editor with a classic editor/writer’s viewpoint about what an author should attempt on the page. He is a creative writer himself who has made all the mistakes he cautions his authors over and uses this too as an effective teaching tool. – Charles Scott Charles Scott is a writer living in southern Ohio, where he works by day in the real estate industry. He began writing again several years ago after a lengthy hiatus.