Steven R. Southard's Blog

Want to write, but you’re unsure how to become a writer, especially a good writer? You’ve surfed to the right blogpost.

I understand the confusion. We speak of “poetic license” as if an official committee confers a certification or other formal document declaring you to be a writer. If you’re waiting for that, or searching the internet for where to apply, let me reassure you.

There’s no license.

No...

At the ICON 49.5 conference in Iowa City last month, I met and sat with author Tricia Andersen at a book signing. Luckily, I stayed on her good side—she knows kickboxing and Jiu Jitsu. If you’re wondering how a skill in martial arts helps with writing fiction, particularly romance fiction, read on to see how Tricia explains it.

Tricia Andersen lives in Iowa with her husband and her three children. She graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in English and from ...

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The post Protected: Author Interview—Tricia Andersen first appeared on Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe).

For those who attended my book signing at Park Books in Severna Park, Maryland last Saturday, I offer a profound thank you. Also, I express unbounded gratitude for the assistance of the bookstore staff in scheduling, setting up, and checking on me during the event.

As a beginning author, most of my previous book signing events consisted of watching people, trying to lure them over to my table, getting disappointed while they turned and walked away, and then waiting and watching again.

Could you write a million words a year? That’s the equivalent of a novel a month. Meet today’s interview guest, Rachel Aukes, who aspires to write a million words a year and has already published over forty novels. I met Rachel at ICON (an eastern Iowa scifi conference) in 2023 and saw her there again in 2025. Buckle up for a fast-paced interview, one that barely registers in her million-word count.

Rachel Recker, writing as Rachel Aukes, is a bestselling author known for gritty sci...

As fortune would have it, I shared a book signing table with Darby Harn, one of the guests of honor at ICON 49.5 earlier this month. Beginners like me can learn about selling books from watching a more experienced writer like Darby. In the interview below, you’ll read how his writing career stalled at one point, but he persevered. From that experience, he offers two profound words of advice—two—for aspiring authors.

Darby Harn is the best-selling, critically acclaimed author of Dea...

I met Jan Gephardt two years ago at Demicon, the scifi conference in Des Moines. Since then, she often reposted my Facebook posts and read my blog. She even made a great Poseidon’s Scribe image for me, which I’ll show in a future post. That’s a real fan! About time I got around to interviewing her. In this interview, you’ll learn why she started her own publishing company, and how she’s made uplifted dogs the stars of her books. Here’s her bio: 

Jan S. Gephardt (pronouns: she/her) i...

Writing requires self-discipline. If you lack that, can you develop it? Let’s find out.

I’ve blogged about discipline before, but that post discussed its importance. Today, I’ll tell you how to increase your self-discipline.

For this blogpost, self-discipline means your ability to control your behavior and actions to achieve your writing goals. This requires you to suppress immediate desires and ignore distractions, to make conscious cho...

Last Saturday, I had a wonderful time at ICON 49.5. Most often held in Cedar Rapids, the Iowa Scifi Conference, or ICON, took place in Iowa City this year. Poised to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary in 2026, they decided to hold a one-day mini-conference this time, hence 49.5.

Book Signing

Conference organizers allowed me to set up at a table in the Iowa City Book Fair taking place the same day. For six hours, people stopped by to talk, look over my books, and buy some. I enjoyed shari...

Have you held a sit-down with your inner critic? You know, that voice inside that’s always telling you you’re no good, that you shouldn’t raise your hand in class, that it’s safer to stand near the wall than to get out on the dance floor. Writers call that voice their “inner editor,” because it questions everything they write—the style, the organization, the spelling. The voice tells writers nobody will buy their stories and they should give up and pursue something else.