‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ author on how he went from self publishing to New York Times bestseller who is developing a TV adaptation with Seth MacFarlane
pagesix.com – Sunday July 26, 2026
It takes a lot of work to be an overnight success, and nobody knows that more than Matt Dinniman, author of the massively popular “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series of books that’s sold a whopping 13.5 million copies.
“I’ve been writing since I was a kid. My first book came out way back in 2003. It was published with a small press. Back then, you didn’t self-publish because if you did, it meant you weren’t good enough. That stigma still exists,” Dinniman tells Page Six Hollywood during a brief respite from his packed schedule at San Diego Comic-Con.
He finally caught the self-publishing bug in 2017, releasing “Dominion of Blades” in the lesser-known (at the time, at least) Literary Role-Playing Game (LitRPG) genre. In the years that followed, he made a living selling drawings of cats and dogs at conventions (he attended 42 of them in 2019 alone). When those cons took a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic, he decided to get serious about his next project: “Dungeon Crawler Carl.”
How to Get Your Book Published: 5 Takeaways from You Are A Writer
pen.org – Friday July 24, 2026
For the final installment of You Are A Writer, PEN America’s workshop series for early-career writers, four industry experts delved into how a book makes its way from a writer’s hands onto shelves. They discussed what agents, editors, and publicists are looking for in proposals and manuscripts, how writers can find the right path for their book’s publication, and why they should never quit their day jobs. Scroll down to read five takeaways from the discussion.
Moderated by Sarah Bowlin, a senior literary agent at Aevitas Creative Management, the session featured Juli Kiyan, editor and associate director of publicity at Penguin Press, Kate Gale, co-founder and managing editor of Red Hen Press, and Liz Garriga, senior director of publicity at Little, Brown.
If you missed them, catch up on the earlier sessions of You Are A Writer.
1. Sweep readers off their feet with your manuscript.
Kicking off the session, Bowlin asked the panelists what they’re looking for in any given submission. Kiyan responded that when it comes to fiction, the writing needs to leap off of the page and wow readers.
Garriga agreed. “Really, it’s just about an immersive reading experience,” she said. “So that’s the good news there: You just have to enchant someone with the writing.”
Later, Bowlin stressed that you should contact agents only once you have a complete (and thoroughly edited) manuscript. “My dad had the very cheesy [saying], ‘You only get one chance at a first impression,’ but it is true in the sense that I have 700 unread novels in my inbox right now and the only way that I get through that material is for something to really stand out,” she said.
Jessica Knoll’s Guide to Writing a Novel Without Losing Your Mind
polyesterzine.com – Friday July 24, 2026
Jessica Knoll knows what it takes to build a life around writing. The bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and The Favorite has spent years turning complicated stories into page-turners, all while navigating the pressures that come with making writing your livelihood. Now, after moving from LA back to New York, raising her young daughter and publishing her latest novel, Helpless, she’s thinking more than ever about the long game, and how to keep writing without letting it consume you.
Helpless is Knoll’s most ambitious novel yet - an erotic thriller about two exes who reunite at the funeral of their beloved professor, only to find themselves pulled into a dangerous story that forces them to question everything they thought they knew about their past.
When we speak, Knoll is candid about the less glamorous side of writing a novel - the days when a thousand words can take four hours, the weeks when the story won’t cooperate and the difficulty of remembering that your life is bigger than your writing.
Here, Jessica Knoll shares her guide to writing a novel without losing your mind.
The Writing Course Gold Rush
litopia.com – Friday July 24, 2026
That old scoundrel Sam Brannan would have felt completely at home in today’s publishing business. Sam, you may recall, was the original promoter of California’s 1848 Gold Rush. After first cornering the market in picks, shovels and pans (paying a mere 20 cents each wholesale), Sam proceeded to run though the streets of San Francisco shouting at the top of his lungs “Gold! Gold on the American River!”.
Accounts indicate that Sam’s brilliant sales promotion all but emptied San Francisco, as most of its male population departed en masse for the mines – equipped, of course, with a Brannan shovel at an eye-watering $15 a pop. It is hardly necessary to add that while most failed to find their own pots of gold, Sam certainly found his – becoming the Gold Rush’s first millionaire.
Fast Forward 160 Years…
The industry is different, but the conversations are the same. “There’s gold in them thar slushpiles,” says one publishing executive to another. “If we had £15 for every submission sent in – why, pardner – we’d never need to sell books again!”
Suddenly, it seems as if every Tom, Dick and publishing Harriet are running writing courses, setting up seminars, organising conferences, selling critiquing services, creating writing groups, providing manuscript doctoring and generally trying to monetize the slushpile. Our industry appears to have declared open season on the naive, sometimes gullible hopes of aspiring writers. It’s the Wild West out there, and someone has to say that much of what is happening now is simply not right.
While many of these offerings are merely guilty of being extremely poor value for money – why anyone would pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for advice that’s available in any how-to book is beyond me – others are less benign.
What I know now about publishing a book
newsroom.co.nz – Wednesday July 22, 2026
It’s Saturday morning, five days after my book launch. I’m at a GP conference in a provincial town. I hadn’t considered seeing my book in an actual book shop. That was only an ethereal idea. But I make myself duck uneasily into Whitcoulls and PaperPlus, self-conscious that every shop assistant knows I am an author looking for their own book, and I pick up a Chelsea Winter, then Become Unstoppable, then Lessons on Living, then Habits of High Performers, flicking through them like I’m legit. I edge around shelves and finally at floor level, in the health and wellbeing section I find one copy of my book Everything but the Medicine: A doctor’s tale between Befriending Your Gut Biome and Menopause Conquered. WTF. I run out the door.
On Google maps I find the Indie bookshop. That will be better. The door sticks and clatters. I avoid eye contact, pretending to browse the Māori and literary sections, my eyes flicking around for my book cover but I can’t see it anywhere. I pause, consider running again, but bravely go to the desk, introduce myself and my book. She looks blank, consults her computer and the computer says, “No.” I desperately wish I’d stayed at the conference and learned more about heart failure.
Publishing your first book is a strange experience. There’s a lot I didn’t know. Here’s what I would tell my pre-book self now that I’ve done it.
The Real Book Ban No One Talks About
dailywire.com – Sunday July 19, 2026
Move over, Leonardo Da Vinci. There’s a new Renaissance humanist on the block — at least, according to the internet. You might know her as the global pop star Dua Lipa, and she wants you to read banned books.
This past week, the “Levitating” singer unveiled her new “Manifesto Library” in Portugal, which features hundreds of books she claims were once banned or otherwise controversial. Posing with a copy of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a book that has now sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, she tells her 650K+ “Book Club” followers that her initiative opens up “conversations around censorship, resistance and the importance of preserving voices that challenge power and refuse to be silenced.”
There’s only one problem. None of the books in her library were ever “banned” or “censored” in the first place.
Among the other titles in Dua Lipa’s library are George Orwell’s “1984,” a book that has sold over 30 million copies as of 2024, and J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” a novel that is read in virtually every single high school English class across the country. I don’t necessarily disagree with Dua Lipa that we all should read these great books, but calling “1984″ and “The Catcher in the Rye” “banned” books is like calling “Game of Thrones,” one of the world’s most widely watched TV shows, a “banned” show.
Meeting the publishers – self-publishing vs a publishing house
yorkshirebylines.co.uk – Sunday July 19, 2026
The most popular tickets at any literature festivals are always the Meet the Publisher slots. For the average aspiring writer, getting a face-to-face with a publisher is well-nigh impossible, with the most sought-after speaking only to agents, not authors. Tickets to the event sell out almost instantly and the waiting list is substantial.
The brief is to send an example of your work ahead of the meeting, to allow the publisher to provide you with feedback. No-one’s going to find themselves signed to a company at one of these meetings, so it’s important to limit your expectations. However, you’ll receive feedback and you’ll make contact, both of which are essential to a future as a writer.
This year’s publishers at the Bradford Literary Festival were from Bloomsbury Publishing, one of the biggest publishing houses and most famous for publishing the Harry Potter series, and Bluemoose Books, an independent publishing company based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. Bluemoose publishes literary fiction and has just celebrated its 20th anniversary with a star-studded event at the local town hall.
Solid advice based on experience
As a creative writing lecturer tasked with guiding aspiring writers, I’m constantly assessing the best route to publication. My students are currently very keen on the idea that self-publishing is now a better route than the soul-destroying traditional route of first finding an agent, then a publisher, usually across years of submissions and disappointment. They love that self-publishing appears to allow the writer to retain greater control as well as avoiding high agency fees.
Travel, photography and music didn’t stop for these creative writing students
news.northeastern.edu – Thursday July 16, 2026
After Petrina Danardatu graduated from Northeastern University’s Boston campus in 2025, she found herself being pulled in two opposite directions.
The dual journalism and English major already had dreams of writing a novel, but was torn between investing time pursuing a career in creative writing or going back to Indonesia, where her family is from, and traveling with friends.
Danardatu found a third option – the Northeastern London virtual graduate degree in creative writing.
“I was like: ‘I can do both of these things at once,’” said Danardatu. “I can be traveling and having these new cultural experiences while also getting my master’s degree and developing my creative practice.”
Danardatu is not alone. In recent decades, postgraduate creative writing degrees have established themselves as a key route into a fiercely competitive industry, allowing would-be authors, poets and nonfiction writers to experiment in varied forms of self-expression with expert guidance.
How I Write: Laura Evans
thegloss.ie – Thursday July 9, 2026
Getting into the writing process …
Laura Evans was born in Burnley and grew up in the Midlands in the UK. She completed Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic studies at university before a career as a magazine editor, with a particular interest in travel and nature. A graduate of Curtis Brown Creative’s novel-writing course, she lives with her family in Norwich. Her debut novel, Little Wild (Mantle Debut), a story of class tensions, secrets and first love set in Suffolk in the 1930s, is out now.
My daily writing routine is not as routine as I’d like it to be. When I’m mid-story I could happily do nothing else for days, but like most parents who write I’ve had to adjust, and largely I think that’s a good thing. I write (around other work) when the children are at school; if I’m not too tired, in the evening; sometimes a little on a weekend. There’s a lot to be said for the advice to produce something daily, however small – but if hours are limited I’d prioritise reading every time. Writing isn’t just the act of putting words on the page; reading fuels the thinking, and thinking fuels the work.
My writing spot is currently a box room overlooking our street. Because it’s so small, the furniture has to be slightly miniature: a chaise longue in front of the window even I, at 5’3”, can’t fully lie on; a compact desk. (Facing the wall, because given any distraction I will daydream for hours.) Over the years I’ve written in coffee shops, libraries, on the kitchen table surrounded by children’s art – and sometimes I still do, but it’s such a gift to have the choice.
My favourite part of the writing process isn’t a stage per se, but the almost physical sensation of things clicking into place. Sometimes it’s a detail uncovered in research that perfectly connects two plot points; sometimes it’s just the sense of capturing something human and universal. If I had to boil down why I write to a single reason, that’s what it would be: those tiny moments of ‘yes’.
How AI is changing language
theguardian.com – Sunday July 5, 2026
As allegations of LLM use rock the literary and media worlds, linguists explain what really distinguishes human and machine writing, while novelists including Jennifer Egan and Jeanette Winterson reflect on the future of fiction in an age of ChatGPT
Three paragraphs, from three different hotel reviews. Can you tell which, if any, were AI‑generated?
“The hotel is in a great location for everything. Lots of places to eat and drink. The hotel itself is always abuzz. The tavern located on the ground floor is definitely a must. Food, service, prices and atmosphere were great.”
“A good hotel, though the room had the proportions of a well-appointed lift. Slept well, shower was excellent, staff were friendly. Breakfast was busy but competent. Would return, though probably not with a very large suitcase.”
“Excellent base for a London trip. The room was quiet, the bed comfortable, and everything worked exactly as it should. Staff were helpful without hovering. A smooth, unfussy stay from start to finish.”
How do you reckon you did? Most people, says Claire Hardaker, a professor of forensic linguistics at the University of Lancaster, get this kind of judgment right only about 60% of the time. Her online test, Bot or Not, asks users to identify the fakes in a series of 15 reviews. The middling success rate might come as a surprise to those convinced they can spot AI writing at 50 paces. When doubts were raised in May about the authenticity of a prizewinning short story by Jamir Nazir, social media users were lightning-quick in their condemnation. “If you know, you know,” commented one. Nazir later told The Atlantic that he didn’t use AI.
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