title: Starve Better: Surviving the Endless Horror of the Writing Life
author: Nick Mamatas
description: Nick Mamatas is the author of three-and-a-half novels, more than seventy short stories, and hundreds of feature articles, and is also an editor and anthologist. His fiction has been nominated for the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild awards and translated into German, Italian, and Greek; his editorial work with <em>Clarkesworld</em> earned the magazine World Fantasy and Hugo award nominations. Nick's reportage, short stories, and essays have appeared in venues such as <em>Razor</em>, <em>Asimov's Science Fiction</em>, <em>Silicon Alley Reporter</em>, the <em>Village Voice</em>, <em>The Smart Set</em>, <em>The Writer</em>, <em>Poets &amp; Writers</em> and anthologies including <em>Supernatural Noir</em> and <em>Lovecraft Unbound</em>. He teaches at Western Connecticut State University in the MFA program in Creative and Professional Writing, was a visiting writer at Lake Forest College and the University of California, Riverside's Palm Desert Campus, and runs writing classes in the San Francisco Bay Area.
zlib_text: **Nick and Lilac**
  
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  By Marian Tee
  
    
  
  Copyright © 2013 Blue Ribbon Books
  
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  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real
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  **ACKNOWLEDGMENTS**
  
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  This book wouldn’t have been complete without God’s grace. It wouldn’t have
  been as great if my publisher wasn’t supporting me every step of the way. It
  wouldn’t have been as beautiful if not for the exquisite cover by [_CT COVER
  CREATIONS_](http://www.ctcovercreations.com), and it wouldn’t have been as
  polished without my editor [_Wendy Chan_](mailto:chan_we