Learn to Write Short Stories That Win

Write short stories with confidence after reading How to Write Winning Short Stories, a great guide for anyone seeking writing tips, help with writing fiction (especially short fiction), and insider tips for winning writing contests. This concise and practical guide includes developing a theme and premise, choosing a title, creating characters, crafting realistic dialogue, bringing the setting to life, working with structure, and editing. It also includes submission and marketing advice. The author, who manages an annual short story competition, offers guidance on manuscript formatting, submission options, contest entry, and how to get the attention of a publisher or contest judge.

Practical, Useful Guide for Writers at All Levels

The book is perfect for anyone who is considering writing a short story. It gives beginning writers a practical playbook for getting started and helps experienced writers build their skills.

Easy-to-Follow Advice and Examples

Based on the author's experiences running an annual short story contest and working with dozens of writers to help them improve and perfect their stories, combined with extensive research (the bibliography contains 80+ sources), here, in one concise little guide, is the best advice and most successful tips for writing winning short stories. Each chapter concludes with a handy checklist for reviewing what was learned and checking stories for possible areas of improvement.

Volunteers are the backbone of many an organization. This practical, hands-on guide, filled with useful tips and everyday examples, will help those responsible for volunteers successfully recruit and manage this invaluable resource.

Anyone who supervises volunteers will find this book an indispensable guide for navigating the intricacies of managing unpaid workers. Underlying the content is the message that volunteers are a vital part of an organization's workforce and should be treated as valuable members of the team. Volunteers can work alongside paid staff members to help the organization run smoothly and efficiently—and cost effectively. The book is packed with easily implemented advice and proven techniques for successfully handling common situations. Concise and easy to read, it assumes neither previous volunteer management experience nor familiarity with business practices, yet even experienced volunteer managers will come away with fresh ideas and new approaches.

To augment her own expertise and increase the diversity of viewpoints, the author interviewed volunteer managers from various types of organizations and shares their stories. Quotes and anecdotes throughout the book help readers relate to common problems and illustrate the challenges and rewards of managing volunteers.