This month, I couldn’t be more excited for another edition of “You Gotta Love This Writing.”
Sharing a little bit of wisdom with us is our guest Andi Cumbo-Floyd from AndiLit. Andi is a writer, editor, and author of the Steele Secrets series and several nonfiction books, including Writing Day In and Day Out: Living a Practice of Words, The Slaves Have Names, Love Letters to Writers, and her latest book, Silence at the Lock.
Andi ditched her professor hat, after teaching ten years in academia, to pursue an idyllic life on a farm—where she provides respite for writers in their creative endeavors.
It is also from the farm that she gets inspiration for her craft and provides a series of writing and editing services for writers, including writer’s retreats, coaching, and community.
YGLTW with Andi Cumbo-Floyd
Here are some invaluable resources Andi recommends in her own words:
1. Online Writing Community with AndiLit
This personal, encouragement-driven writing group is designed to help writers connect with each other for the purposes of community, accountability, and support. Members set weekly goals and share their progress, post questions to the group, and have the space to lament, celebrate, or question this writing life we all enjoy (at least most of the time).
2. Jane Friedman
Jane is one of the wisest, most generous and honest people I know, and she is—in my opinion—the best publishing expert in the U.S. today. Her website, Jane Friedman, is chock-full of great, free advice for writers on everything from writing query letters to finding an editor. Plus, she offers services to help people put together stellar packages for agents and publishers.
3. The Write Practice
For writers who want hands-on, practical advice about the craft of writing, The Write Practice is a great resource. Their daily blog posts include a writing prompt each and every day, and the site itself has great writing, including a quick writing assessment to help writers improve their work quickly.
4. Poets and Writers
Both Poets and Writers’ website and amazing magazine have been go-to resources for me for over twenty years. Through them, writers can get introductions to new authors, information about the business of writing, and information about grants and literary journals to which they can submit.
5. What Should I Read Next
This wonderful Modern Mrs. Darcy’s podcast is all about books and includes conversations with readers about what books they love, what books they hate, and what they’d like to change about their reading life. Then the host, the kind, smart Anne Bogel, makes suggestions on books they might like to read next. It’s a fun, enlightening listen every week.
6. AgentQuery
When an editing client or member of the online community asks me about finding an agent, I always suggest AgentQuery first because it’s a quick, easy search engine to find agents who represent the type of manuscript they are writing. It’s a fast way for writers to find potential agents and begin to compile a list of people to send queries to.
7. Love Letters to Writers
Love Letters to Writers originally began as weekly letters to members of the writing community I run. The book consists of fifty-two letters about the writing life, including everything from the discipline of writing to genre to the ways that pain and joy can feed our writing selves.
Thank you for joining us for this edition of YGLTW with Andi Cumbo-Floyd. Stay tuned for the upcoming guests.
Andi Cumbo-Floyd is a writer, editor, and farmer, who lives at the edge of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, four dogs, four cats, six goats, three rabbits, and thirty-five chickens. She writes regularly about writing at AndiLit.com, and her latest book, Love Letters to Writers, is available everywhere books are sold.
