5-Minute Memoir: Want to have your essay on the writing life appear in WD magazine?

The Writer’s Digest Conference is officially over, and we’re back! (Check out Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents blog for a recap and some of my photos.)

Today we’ve got news on something I’m nerdily thrilled about—the new recurring section in the InkWell department of Writer’s Digest magazine: 5-Minute Memoir. Subtitled “Tales From the Writing Life,” 5-Minute Memoir is exactly what it sounds like—a personal essay on some facet of the writing life, be it a narrative or a reflection, pensive, touching or hilarious. (The debut installment, which is in our February issue currently on newsstands, features a talented young writer named Peter Jurich riffing on a writing sojourn he took, and where it is, exactly, that writers call home—and how that impacts their prose.)

We haven’t had a recurring essay spot in the magazine in some time, and I’m pumped it’s back. I think a well-crafted essay can convey as much instruction and power as a how-to piece, and on the simplest level, solid essays are just, well, damn good reading. If you happen to pen an essay on the writing life in 600 words or fewer, send it our way at wdsubmissions@fwmedia.com, and we’ll check it out for consideration in a future issue. I’ll be looking for pieces from anyone and everyone, veteran and novice, young and old, literary practitioners and genre fictioners, etc.

Also, if you missed a certain edition of WD, it looks like they’re clearing out our 2008 back issues, and have marked them down 50 percent. To check out the stock, follow this link and click “Price (Low to High).” Cover gals and boys include Diablo Cody, Brad Thor, Sara Gruen and Isabel Allende, and our features feature screenwriting, agents, literary hotspots, e-books and more. (And I admit I might selfishly want to find these issues good homes because they were the first ones I ever worked on here.)

Today’s regular (nonessay) Promptly prompt follows. Happy Wednesday.

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WRITING PROMPT: To Be Married
Feel free to take the following stolen dialogue prompt home or post a
response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our
occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
If
you’re having trouble with the
captcha code sticking, e-mail your piece and the prompt to me at
writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll
make sure it gets up.

It was a strange engagement. But she had reasons of her own for wanting to go through with it. And so did he.