Weekly Roundup: The Craft and the Business

Conferences
This fall, local Zürich writers and editors from Nuance Words are sponsoring WriteCon Zürich 2012. I love the tagline: ". . . because everyone can write."


Contests

Flash your fiction with Writer Unboxed's 7 Sundays of Summer Flash Fiction Contest. Every Sunday a new image will be posted on Writer Unboxed. Just put your story (250 words or less) in the comments section. The competition deadline for the first week has passed, but it's not too late to add your story and then continue with the new image on Sunday, 8 July. 

After revving up with flash fiction, why not submit a somewhat longer story to the Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition? The deadline is November 15. If you're a genre writer (whether romance, crime, young adult, or science fiction), check out the competitions in these categories (deadline September 14).



Craft
Writer and editor Susan J. Morris offers colorful tips on creating characters on Omnivoracious.

Editing and Design
The Book Designer offers helpful tips for preparing your manuscript for publication. My favorite? Proofread by changing the font to Courier New and printing it out.

An editorial assistant at St Martin's Press talks about her manuscript editing process on Publishing Crawl.

—Kathy