Writing a book is all about organization, not sitting down and letting it flow.

Through OverDrive, readers with Kindles or the Kindle app can now download e-books free of charge at over 11,000 local libraries.

According to Publishers Weekly, publishers are increasingly partnering with Skype to connect their readership with high-caliber authors.

The first two weeks of September are jam-packed with top-notch author appearances throughout the Twin Cities.

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.

What every self-published author should know.

Send in submissions by 5 p.m. on Monday, July 11, and your poem could be featured on The Writers' Block!

Co-sponsored by the Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Association and the Minnesota Historical Society, the fair will feature useful programs for new collectors as well as more than 50 booksellers from 13 states, offering a wide range of books, ephemera, maps, prints and other paper collectibles.

These families -- both real and fictional -- will give you a new frame of reference for understanding that there's no such thing as an ordinary family.

Fifty years ago, as a college sophomore, I enrolled in a short story writing course taught by Harry Collins (not his real name). It was the only creative writing class I ever took and I got a C in it. According to Dr. Collins, my stories lacked verisimilitude and were weak in character development. Heedless of my instructor, over the subsequent decades I've published eight books.

At a conference of the National Association for Poetry Therapy some years ago, we (Ted and Elizabeth) just happened to sit next to each other at lunch, and in the course of the conversation -- where are you from? what do you do? -- we learned that we were both from the Twin Cities, wrote poetry, and shared an experience with writing and grief. Before the luncheon was over, Ted said, "I'm going to find a project for us to do together."

The Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose offers 12 emerging Minnesota writers the opportunity to work intensively with six nationally-acclaimed writers.

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.

Next Tuesday, St. Paul poet Laureate Carol Connolly will host "Readings by Writers: Poets from up North," an evening of Duluth poets at the University Club in St. Paul.

Despite the snow, spring has arrived in the Twin Cities, along with Once Upon a Crime's annual Write of Spring gathering.