An interview with, and a new dark thriller novel by, Eric Shapiro.

"Red Dennis," Eric Shapiro's new novel, is out. I haven't read it yet but the reviews are excellent, which isn't news to me. Eric and I co-founded Ghostwriters Central in 2002. We were partners for some 15 years. While we had this business together, he did an astonishing amount of writing, so I can assure you Red Dennis won't disappoint. He's a passionate and supremely capable writer. Stanley Wheeler interviewed Eric recently. One of his other books, designed to motivate writers to write, is "Ass Plus Seat." What a great title. Sit down and freakin' write. LOL Read Mr. Wheeler's interview with Eric Shapiro here. Best wishes, Eric.

Happy New Year from Ghostwriters Central!

December 30, 2015July 21, 2023

We’re winding up an excellent 2015 here at Ghostwriters Central. It’s been a busy year, complete with many projects, Read More...

Post number one. Hi there!

November 19, 2015July 21, 2023

Welcome to the Ghostwriters Central blog. This blog will be authored by me, for the time being. We do hope you will find it to be Read More...

Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.

Sherman Reilly Duffy

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

Harlan Ellison

Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Alice Munro

Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.

M. K. Simmons

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.

William Goldman

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

Don’t annoy an author, you’ll end up in their book and you won’t look good.

Lawrence Wray

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.

Chet Cunningham

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.

Stephen King