One tiny comma can sometimes make all the difference when it comes to the meaning of a sentence or a contract for that matter. Strunk and White advocated for the Oxford comma in their classic book, “The Elements of Style,” while the AP Stylebook doesn’t require series comma. If you’re an Oxford-comma proponent like me, a recent federal court ruling will reinforce your position. The following articles will help make my case on the importance of the lowly comma.

Do you have an unpublished manuscript? Join the Twitter party known as #PitMad to pitch your work to literary agents and publishers. On Dec. 7, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST, you may tweet a maximum of three different pitches for every manuscript.

Good writing is hard and getting published is even harder. No one knows this better than best-selling author Lisa Scottoline who compared a struggling writer’s life to a weak candlelight. “Your work is your candle. Protect your candle,” she said at the recent Writer’s Digest Annual Conference.

A literary agent, two best-selling authors, an editor, and a digital strategist recently launched Career Authors, a free writing resource and a new online community for writers.

If you have an unpublished and unrepresented literary novel, two small presses offer an opportunity within the next few months. Coffee House Press has open submissions right now, while the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing is sponsoring a fiction contest.

As a lifelong allergy sufferer who needs regular allergy shots, I can’t help but say that attending the recently held Writer’s Digest Annual Conference was a shot in the arm for me—as important (and more fun!) as my immunotherapy.  Let me share the top 10 things I learned from the event.

If you write horror stories, now is your chance to scare up a book deal. The Inkshares 2017 Horror Contest will publish three or more manuscripts based on their popularity and judges’ choices. The contest is open until Halloween.

Film is a universal art form. Those of us who write novels can learn a lot from the storytelling techniques of filmmakers, especially masters like Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, and François Truffaut. Their films defied Hollywood norms and yet found a global audience.

If you don’t think the Oxford comma is necessary, a federal court’s recent decision will tell you otherwise. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of delivery drivers who claimed they were eligible for overtime pay under Maine’s regulations. Their argument relied on the absence of a serial comma in the law.

Authors who use multiple points of view risk losing their readers’ interest or confusing them with every shift. Only a few pull off such a perilous approach. In “Citizen Washington,” William Martin blows away the competition among “daredevil” authors. He uses not just three points of view (“The Girl on the Train” and “The Help”) or five (“The Poisonwood Bible”) but 16!