Bad Choices Make Good Stories: Conversations About Writing

Being a writer can mean navigating a lonely and confusing path. Bad Choices can help make the road a little easier.

Is this a craft book? Encouragement and support for those who are stuck or feeling as though they don't have what it takes? A meditation on why write in the first place?

Yes to all of those things.

Bad Choices Make Good Stories is a collection of essays about craft, revision, and the community and struggles that go along with the writing life. Author Erin Dionne has taught writing for over two decades, has published seven novels and two picture books, and shares her experience--peppered with a healthy dose of humor--with readers in this honest and funny collection.

Erin Dionne writes novels for kids, picture books, and nonfiction. Her latest novel for tweens is Secrets of a Fangirl (Scholastic 2019). She's written six other books for young readers. Her novel Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking: A 14 Day Mystery, was a 2014 Edgar Award finalist. Her most recent picture book is Balletball (Charlesbridge, 2020). She is an Associate Professor of Liberal Arts at Montserrat College of Art, in Beverly, MA, and lives outside of Boston with her husband, two children, and a very indignant dog. Bad Choices Make Good stories marks her first nonfiction collection. Find her online at erindionne.com.

Karen Boss edits books for children--from picture books through YA, and both fiction and nonfiction--at Charlesbridge Publishing in Watertown, Massachusetts. She also teaches classes whenever she can and believes in magic.