1. The 2019 Washington Writers Conference. Did you hear that Jeffery Deaver will be headlining our 2019 event? Judging by the throngs checking out our conference page, indeed you did! (Click here to register at the special Super-Early-Bird rate while there's still time!)


2. Robert Allen Papinchak’s review of Transcription: A Novel by Kate Atkinson. “Kate Atkinson is a masterful manipulator of lies. Transcription is a spectacular game of deception, her own perfect plot. It is as twisty and efficient — everything falls into place like the tumblers of a combination lock — as the best of Le Carré.”


3. Dana King’s review of John Woman: A Novel by Walter Mosley. “In the end, though, John Woman isn’t about the characters at all. It’s about a point Mosley wants to make. No one talks to each other; they make speeches. Passages that inspire head scratching are followed by authorial asides to ensure you get this point. That can work within reason, but done too often, it disturbs the vivid fictive dream the best books strive to achieve in the reader.”


4. “Quality Control.” In October’s “Decisions & Revisions,” columnist E.A. Aymar, contemplating the treatment of writers of color, asked, “Why are the gatekeepers reluctant to allow those disenfranchised voices in? Is it simply because they’re different? Or is it because of what those voices reveal, the potential they have (and often exhibit) to show the majority in an unfavorable light?”


5. “Desire & Creativity.” In the inaugural installment of her new column, “The Company We Keep,” Leeya Mehta explored the “possessive, sometimes ruinous” competing pulls of motherhood and authorhood — a topic that resonated endlessly with readers.

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