Gloria Kempton

Gloria Kempton is an American author, storytelling coach, and writing instructor best known for Write Great Fiction: Dialogue, the standard reference on dialogue in the Writer's Digest Write Great Fiction series. Born in 1951, she has written ten books, including seven nonfiction self-help titles and two young adult novels, and has placed hundreds of short stories, essays, personal experiences, personality profiles, how-to articles, and feature pieces with national magazines, including Writer's Digest.

Write Great Fiction: Dialogue (2004) is built around the practical questions every fiction writer hits: when a character should talk, when silence is sharper than speech, how to keep dialogue from dragging a scene, how to weave dialogue with narrative and action, how to write dialogue that fits the conventions of specific genres, and how to make every character sound like only that character could have said the line. The book carries dozens of dialogue passages from contemporary novelists and pairs each technique with exercises a writer can run on a manuscript in progress.

Beyond the dialogue book, Kempton teaches online and in-person writing courses covering story structure, scene craft, voice, and the inner life of a writer. She is also the director of The Hero's Journey Prison Writing Project, a volunteer program that brings writing instruction and craft mentorship to incarcerated writers. She has continued to contribute to Writer's Digest as both an author and an article writer, and is a long-time instructor at Writers.com.