A practical, thoughtfully constructed guide for aspiring authors.
A writer shares his knowledge and strategies for getting published within the world of small presses and literary magazines.
As a former contributor to the literary website HTMLGIANTand the editor responsible for the “Where to Submit” list for the Entropyonline magazine, Sweeney uses his expertise to offer a warmly encouraging how-to for writers. Specifically, his intended audience are those who aim to submit their work to places outside the traditional Big Five publishing houses and without an agent advocating for them. Sweeney emphasizes various reasons a writer may have for wanting to get published, encouraging his readers to be honest about the validation they seek from external sources and the kind of community they hope to build. He provides basic tools to begin research into different publications, including templates for cover letters, and he explains how he prefers to “tier” his submissions to maximize chances of a story being published within a year and to avoid overlap. The author rounds out his advice with chapters that offer a behind-the-scenes look into his own work as an editor, and interviews with successful writers, including Lisbeth White and Jackson Bliss, who share their perspectives on the challenging world of publishing. Sweeney’s tone is approachable and pleasant throughout: “When I first dreamed of being published, I wanted ‘fame, glory, and money,’ in a surprisingly unironic way,” he writes frankly early on, making readers feel at ease before he begins breaking down how hard it can be to stand out. Smartly, Sweeney quickly shows how these complications can be potential advantages, as when he encourages authors to get a sense of different publications’ schedules in order to “approach your work rhythmically rather than getting lost in question of what to revise when.” The final interviews effectively support one of Sweeney’s main points about community, as when one author, Zoe Tuck, smartly describes literary journals as “a room I want to be in.”
A practical, thoughtfully constructed guide for aspiring authors.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781608689361
Page Count: 216
Publisher: New World Library
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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