Writing Tips, Workshops, and Inspiration from Bestselling Authors

Mystery Writers of America has announced the 2026 Edgar Allan Poe Award Winners. Outliers instructor and USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan has won The Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award for her novel "All This Could Be Yours" (Macmillan Publishers – Minotaur Books). We're excited to celebrate this honor and recognition, as its another nod to her skill and all other accomplishments! Congratulations, Hank! Outliers is a proud partner of MWA. As stated in T

Talking about your own book can feel awkward. But you know what doesn’t? Letting other people do it for you. Reviews, testimonials, and reader messages are some of the most powerful (and underused) marketing tools you have. They build trust, spark curiosity, and show potential readers what your book feels like. Here’s how to use them effectively without sounding like you’re bragging. 1. Pull the Most Compelling Lines Not every review needs to be shared. Look for the ones that

Join Outliers GET TO KNOW hosts DP Lyle and Kathleen Antrim for a fun conversation with bestselling author and Killer Nashville founder Clay Stafford. 📺 WATCH: Get to Know on Outliers YouTube Channel 🎧 LISTEN: Outliers Podcast Series On Your Favorite Outlet Clay Stafford has had an eclectic career as an author, filmmaker, story and creative consultant, actor, composer, educator, public speaker and business leader. He has sold nearly four million copies of his works in over

Bestselling authors and Outliers co-founders Kathleen Antrim and DP Lyle were recently featured on an episode of The Two Authors Podcast, with Douglas Pratt and Nicholas Harvey. The pair delve into Outliers' unique class offerings, emphasizing the significance of being an 'outlier' in the writing world, and how instructors like Jeffrey Deaver, James Rollins, and Hank Phillippi Ryan bring a wealth of real-world author experience to the program. 🎧 LISTEN NOW: The Two Authors P

Join DP Lyle for a fun chat with Retired Detective and Story Consultant Adam Richardson. Adam Richardson spent seventeen of his twenty-eight years in law enforcement as a detective in California, including assignments to state and federal task forces. He has been helping screenwriters, fiction authors, TV shows, and film productions with the cop stuff in their stories since 2015. Join his online community, Writer’s Detective Bureau. "A world-wide membership of crime-fiction

I’ve been writing professionally for nearly four decades. I watch for research that confirms the benefits. There’s evidence that expressing yourself in writing can improve your outlook, enhance momentum, increase self-awareness, strengthen memory, and just plain bring you joy. It can even reduce symptoms of illness and expand your social reach. Here are five tips for using writing for positive benefit: Exploit the effort of revision for personal awareness. One study had coll

Join Host DP Lyle, MD for a clever question from a crime writer and a discussion of this fascinating neurological syndrome. " What Drugs Might Cause Side Effects in My Character With Alice in Wonderland Syndrome?" 📺 WATCH: Criminal Mischief on Outliers YouTube Channel 🎧 LISTEN: Outliers Podcast Series On Your Favorite Outlet Q: I have a question about Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) My character is in his mid-30s. From what I've gathered from reading this syndrome, i

Welcome to another episode of "Get to Know," hosted by DP Lyle and Kathleen Antrim! In this amazing interview, we sit down with bestselling author Kaira Rouda . 📺 WATCH: Get to Know on Outliers YouTube Channel 🎧 LISTEN: Outliers Podcast Series On Your Favorite Outlet Join us for a class taught by Kaira Rouda! Unreliable Narrators and Twisted Truths: Creating Characters Readers Love to Hate Tuesday, June 16 at 4pm PT / 7pm EST Kaira Rouda is an award–winning USA TODAY and A