ADVICE FOR THE LIT-LORN

This, that, both

Doesn’t the word "oversight," which has two opposite meanings, cause misunderstandings?

Winners’ circle

Are book publishers as smart as your Advice to the Lit-Lorn column implies all the time? Paul Beatty's Booker-winning satirical novel, The Sellout, was turned down by eighteen publishers before finding a home!

Fictionality

Are the words fictional and fictitious interchangeable? If so, why do we need both?

Word hoards

Can you recommend a good dictionary and thesaurus?

Simple and/or scholarly

How can academic writers apply your advice to keep prose simple and direct?

Workshop, or not

Is the creative writing workshop a good way to learn to write?

Facing flak

Is it flak or flack? I looked it up in two dictionaries and they disagree. Why?

Helping or hounding

Am I paranoid, or is my agent trying to hurry me up on my second book?

Adjective queue

When there’s more than one adjective before a noun, does it matter what order they’re in?

Do and don’t, plural

How do you punctuate “dos and donts”?

Nothing for granted

Have you got any tips for a first-timer applying for an arts council writing grant?

The steamy bits

Do you have any advice on writing sex scenes?

Meddling with poetry

Should a poet put up with a poem being edited?

Proof and reproof

Is it my imagination, or has the proofreading of books gone downhill in the last ten years?

Net work

Where does a Boomer start in marketing her self-published books via the internet?

Sahara, or not

What’s wrong with writing “Sahara Desert”?