Gathered by Mandi Casolo

Your token gift-giving link for literary friends. If you’re like me, you haven’t started shopping yet, so here’s a head start with some “elegant and pithy” posters illustrating famous quotes by writers.

Suspending reader disbelief for the moment is hard but suspending reader disbelief for an entire creative world is harder. Karen Russell of Tin House talks the rules of the governed, and how she got away with a character hatching from an alligator incubator but not with a character surviving a fall from a 40-foot tree.

Cut the b.s. If a story is boring, tell your workshop mate that it’s boring, not “slow” or “stunted” or “underdeveloped.” You’re all writers and can recognize a euphemism when you hear one. Do each other a favor and be honest.

Emily Dickinson’s birthday was Dec. 10th. Why does a December birthday for Dickinson seem appropriate? Celebrate by watching an animated short for her poem “I Started Early–Took My Dog.”

“Who gives a shit? Good books is good books, and nothing else matters” is the best conclusion regarding genre fiction I’ve read in a while. Even though Paper Darts blogger Courtney Algeo considers her foray into genre a failure, I’d say it was a success.