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About Jamie Sheffield
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Blog postI started work on my first children's book on a whim, but it's grown into something, which happens with writing.
I had finished my next novel and was in the process of doing the writerly thing and sending it out to agents and publishers for rejection. My plan was to give them a few months time to categorically refuse to help my latest story get into print, say New Year's Eve, before doing what I've done in the past and going it on my own, with the help of Kindle Desktop Publ -
Blog postMy first children's book, "Chili, the Grumpy Tortoise", has gone live and is available on Amazon (or you can order it directly from me if you want a signed copy).
You can find it at Amazon, at the following link: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B09B4F2KTG
It's the story of a very grumpy Russian tortoise with a past that he explores with the help of a friendly Redfoot Tortoise he lives next to in their outside enclosures. On the one hand, it's a piece of specula -
Blog postI noticed that it's been too long since I posted here, so here goes....
I reached out to 30+ agents and publishers with query letters, interested in trying out a more traditional publishing route for my latest mystery novel, The World Beneath The World, the first book in a series about a pair of detectives hiding out in New Hampshire with a greenhouse full of rescue tortoises. I've heard back with numerous polite "no thank you" emails, a non-committal (yet) expression o -
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Blog postIt occurred to me this morning that I hadn't posted to this blog in a while. and the best way to do it is to do it, so here goes....
I've always felt a bit as though I operated my writing life, and business, inside a bubble, but it's seemed even more so during the year of Covid.
I've got a number of projects going, mostly because I like to bounce back and forth between different things, depending on my mood and energy and motivation.
WIP - Mystery NovelBeta-readers -
Blog postLately, I’ve been thinking about choice, and choices, in the worlds I inhabit, and in those I create. The living and fictional beings that I live with are defined by their choices, or by the way they act and react to their perception of having choices.
To have agency, to be able to make choices and act on one’s own behalf, is not just freedom, it’s power. The power to pick your path through time, to dodge some obstacles, and intentionally run head-on into others, defines us -
Blog postAutomatic writing or psychography is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. The words purportedly arise from a spiritual or supernatural source.I don't engage in automatic writing, although it sometimes feels like it. I often don't know where the words come from... that seems like a startling admission for a writer to make, but it's true. Although I'm a plotter rather than a pantser when it comes to my writing, I sometime
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Blog postI posted on my blog about a month ago that I had in mind to produce a chapbook.
I fell in love with the idea of chapbooks when I learned about them at a residency during my MFA at Goddard College. Traditionally, a chapbook was a small/short book with a collection of essays or poems or stories, plainly bound and distributed cheaply or for free. My plan had been to find a few related stories I'd written and physically produce a chapbook to distribute by hand in my part of the world (I live r -
Blog postI'd never heard of, or thought about, chapbooks before learning about them while at Goddard, in pursuit of my MFA.
Chapbooks are simply tiny books. They're normally 20-40 page collections of poetry, fiction, essays, or some mix of a couple of things. I've decided to release a series of chapbooks based on an assortment of short stories that I love, but that haven't, to date, fit in any of the full-length books I'm working on.
My original plan was to follow an older chapbook tradition -
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Blog postMy Ten
I recently read an article about Yo-Yo Ma, and how he's getting through the pandemic and isolation... it's a brilliant piece and he's an astonishing man, gifted and generous and kind and compassionate and thoughtful in multiple senses of the word.
(picture from NYT)
The article is titled: "Yo-Yo Ma Tries to Bring Us Comfort and Hope" (click the link to check it out).
A part of the article was his discussion about ten thi -
Blog postI'm trying something new.
I'm on a writing retreat in someone else's house; I didn't break-in, they invited me (I'm like a vampire in that respect, I only enter other people's places when invited... in other respects, I'm not at all like a vampire).
It's a lovely house near Boston... lots of room, lots of light, lots of privacy and quiet. I love writing in my home for all sorts of reasons, but sometimes enjoy writing someplace else for precisely those reasons.
I fi -
Blog postWelcome to the new year!
My latest book, a collection of short stories, is doing well on Amazon and in some of the indie bookstores I've been working with for a while. I've gotten some good reviews online and through word of mouth.
I've heard from a few people who loved the Tyler books that they didn't love this collection... that's OK. Not all books are for all people, not everyone has to like everything an author publishes. I like the stories in the collection, a lot, -
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Blog postMy latest book, titled No Man is an Island... Except Me, just went live on Amazon and is available through them, via your favorite local bookstore, or you can get a signed copy by sending me an email.
It's a collection of short fiction. Fifteen stories about people who are square pegs in a round hole world; a writer’s dozen of people and places where unusual is the norm, where odd is ordinary.
I had a wonderful time writing the stories, exploring those places in my mind (or soul), an -
Blog post"Write Every Day!" - This advice is casually tossed around in any and every discussion of Writing and Writers. from the moment you start filling notebooks with ideas and poking at a keyboard, visions of sharing your stories with the world dancing in your head like wordy sugarplums... the way it's normally given, normally meant, normally received, is wrong, is bad advice.
Luckily, you found this article, so you can be SAVED.
The worst possible interpretati -
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Blog postI was recently speaking with a friend who's also a writer, and we got to talking about the things we do outside of working on our current WIPs (works in progress for those who collect acronyms) to support our growth as writers, our sanity, or our connections to other people and other writers.
My answer was that the most useful and enjoyable piece of "Homework" that I give myself every month is to read a book in preparation for leading a discussion with a writers bookclub at my lo -
Blog postI heard from my advisor yesterday... she's happy with my thesis.
{imagine the release of a breath held for months, a breath I'd not been aware of holding}
The collection of stories that I'll be submitting to the archives and archivists at Goddard College went from 27 stories to 15; I think it's a much tighter collection, more in line with what I wanted to serve up to readers, and with the revisions all of my readers helped me to find my way to is very close to the stories I had in my -
Blog postMy thesis will be finished. Not yet, not soon, but someday, and looking at the collection of stories I've put together in the semi-final stages makes me proud, and happy, and excited ... for what's next.
I found my way to Goddard two years ago, hungry to change my approach to writing, eager to improve and professionalize my stories and the way I produced and shared them with the world. My take on me was that I was more storyteller than writer, and what I wanted to get from my time a -
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Blog postWhy is a guy who's written and published four novels back in school pursuing an MFA?Why is that same novelist laboring to produce a collection of short stories for his thesis?Where is he in that process ... it's been a long time since he published anything?What's next ... why ... when?Those are all excellent questions, especially the first two, and rather than Sir Edmund Hillary-ing my answer, let me try to think my way through them in this blog entry ... if you promise to read it, I promise to
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Blog postI tell people I'm a writer.
It's possible that I'm lying ... or at least that I think I'm lying.
I'm a student of story. I love the feel and shape of a good story. I've spent my life enjoying watching, listening to, and reading stories that other people tell; after a lifetime in the pursuit of story, I generally know which way a good one will bend and twist before sticking its landing.
It's this gift, or skill, that gave me the courage to write Here Be -
Blog postWriting is a task best done by oneself.
Wait, that's not true ... let me rephrase that to explain how I'm right, as well as how I'm wrong.
Writing your first draft is generally best done in private; what happens before and after that first draft is best done in some form of writing community.
One of the ways in which writing is difficult, at least for me, is that dichotomy, the bi-directional pull of introvert and extrovert.
I love sitting alon -
Blog postI just got back from two weeks in Iceland with my wife and son. We had a spectacular time exploring the fascinating island-nation. It occurred to me on landing back at Logan at sunset the other night, driving home in the dark through legions of Masshole drivers, that we'd been living in the light for two weeks.
Although the sun technically sets for an hour or two out of every 24 at this time of year, the sky never gets darker than a cloudy afternoon. We'd flown in, rented a car, and -
Blog postI recently returned from an extended trip around the country with my son Ben. We traveled a huge loop around the perimeter of the country, with the help of Amtrak's Railpass. Starting in Albany, we looped to Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, New Orleans, Washington DC, and then home again, after riding about 6,500 miles of train track in varying levels of comfort.
The day we headed out, packing light
Great art Great zoo Great aquariumWe stayed in a wonderful AirBnBIt's a -
Blog postI gave a talk at Landmark College, located in Putney, Vermont, this week, and it was recorded by the local TV station for local broadcast.
The talk was titled: "Neurodiverse Characters in Fiction: Perspectives Beyond the Vanilla"
It was a fun talk to give, and a great place to give the talk for a number of reasons:I love talking about writingI enjoy writing, and reading, neurodiverse characters in fictionLandmark College's student population is largely compris -
Blog postHe came to live with us about a decade ago, low points in our lives, each for our own reasons, from which we all saved each other in a mutual rebuilding, the kind you only see where dogs are involved.
Miles was back in the isolation section of our favorite Humane Society on earth ... he jumped, he barked, a lot. In one of those cruel feedback loops of confinement, he could never really share his essential Miles-ness in that place, but we saw enough that we knew his weirdness would f -
Blog postI just returned from my second residency at Goddard College, in pursuit of my MFA in Creative Writing; it was mostly perfect, and definitely a magical experience.
It was a frozen and snowglobe-y world up in Plainfield, between buildings and classes on Goddard's pretty campus, exhausting also; once I crunched down my driveway at home, I spent the majority of the MLK weekend couching with my wife and dogs (possibly with my dogs and wife, opinions vary).
I've been thinking a -
Blog postI gave a talk for the "Contemporary Environmental Writers" class at Paul Smith's College yesterday; everyone, myself included, had a great time.
Photo Credit: Deb NayborI love doing this sort of thing, and wish I did them more, so it occurred to me to make the point that might not already be clear:
Ask me ... I'd love to come and give a talk at your school or library or bookclub!
I love talking about my books. I love talking about writing. I love tal
Titles By Jamie Sheffield
Dog is My Co-Pilot: Meditations on the intersection of Dogs and Humans (SmartPig Chapbooks Book 1)
Jul 22, 2020
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Rae Ford,
Rodney Hall,
C. R. Garmen,
Michelle Rabe,
Lindy Spencer,
Jamie Sheffield,
Brenda Tetreault,
L. Bachman
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