Photo: Guy Kawasaki by Ellen Santasiero | April 2026 I’m watching this cop show. Senior Detective Linden barely speaks, respects protocol, and shows little interest in food, while the new guy, the junior Holder, rattles on in ghetto-speak, cuts corners, and practices a form of vegetarianism that includes pork rinds. By the time we learn most of this, though, we’ve already fallen for these characters. Why? Because the series’ writers make us feel emotionally  connected to the characters  from...

Mike Cooper - March 1, 2026 To some, these three words mean the same thing, but I like to look at them as different processes. If you look back a couple of months at The Forge blogs, you’ll see in a discussion of workshopping the idea that “Writing is rewriting.” I believe that’s true. I also believe that “Writing is revising” and “Writing is editing.”   To rewrite, put simply, is to write again. We have an idea—usually something fairly vague—like: Why don’t we live forever? or What if...

Arguably, voice is one of the more elusive and pitchy of literary qualities. You know it when you hear it (or read it).