Interview by Morgan Baker If you read “The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared,” and you should, it may seem like the memoir is about Casey Mulligan Walsh’s son Eric’s untimely death in a single-person car accident when he was 20 and Casey’s grief. While that is most definitely part of it, […]
How to let go and allow the threads of your story find one another by Rebe Huntman When I attended graduate school for creative nonfiction in the early 2000s, writing that diverged from linear narrative was often looked at with suspicion, as if the writer was intentionally trying to be circuitous because they were incapable […]
MAYA & NATASHA, Elyse Durham Maya and Natasha are twin sisters born during the Siege of Leningrad in 1941 and abandoned by their mother, a prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet who would rather die than not dance. Taken in by their mother’s best friend at the Kirov, the girls are raised to be dancers. […]
Interview by Morgan Baker If you read “The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared,” and you should, it may seem like the memoir is about Casey Mulligan Walsh’s son Eric’s untimely death in a single-person car accident when he was 20 and Casey’s grief. While that is most definitely part of it, […]
MAYA & NATASHA, Elyse Durham Maya and Natasha are twin sisters born during the Siege of Leningrad in 1941 and abandoned by their mother, a prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet who would rather die than not dance. Taken in by their mother’s best friend at the Kirov, the girls are raised to be dancers. […]
Ellen Barker’s illuminating third novel, The Breaks (February 18, She Writes Press), takes a look at the deep injustice of wrongful conviction and what “freedom” means after release from prison. All this is set against the story of Marianne, white and middle-aged and struggling with her own life challenges, including sort-of dating a Black cop. Mixing […]
While Visiting Babette, my new novella, struck Camille Griep, the editor of Does It Have Pockets, as a fairy tale. My publisher perceived strains of Alice in Wonderland, as did reviewer Devyn Andrews, who pointed out that “we first meet Ina when she is running late … and the Queen of Hearts makes a notable […]
One of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked throughout my career is the inspiration behind a book, and the launch of my latest Little White Lies series is no exception. The first book in the series, LIE IN THE TIDE, my eleventh publication to date, is a culmination of a few “what if” ideas […]
How to let go and allow the threads of your story find one another by Rebe Huntman When I attended graduate school for creative nonfiction in the early 2000s, writing that diverged from linear narrative was often looked at with suspicion, as if the writer was intentionally trying to be circuitous because they were incapable […]
Before I published a book, I understood reviews were important in much the same way I once understood, intellectually, that childbirth was uncomfortable. Now (as I scour my bookshelves, retroactively posting reviews of every title I’ve ever enjoyed, while calling up moms with kids older than mine to apologize), I understand. Reviews are important to authors […]
By Julie Hartley In October 2022 I came across an article about the SS City of Benares, a requisitioned cruise liner that set out from England in September 1940 carrying evacuees to safety in Canada. The ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat in stormy weather, far from land. Dozens of children died as the […]
by Raquel Drosos “Never stop creating.” This is what I write above my signature in every book I autograph. But for a long stretch last year, I stopped following my own advice—and found myself in a bad place. Let me back up. I’m the author of two novels: Games of Chance, a coming-of-age family saga, […]
By Paulette Stout Our culture is obsessed with body size. It just is. Especially this time of year. How large or small someone’s body is often becomes more consequential to our perceptions of them than who they are as a people. One glance and we’ve already assessed their health, worth ethic, romantic prospects, intelligence, and […]
Interview by Morgan Baker If you read “The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared,” and you should, it may seem like the memoir is about Casey Mulligan Walsh’s son Eric’s untimely death in a single-person car accident when he was 20 and Casey’s grief. While that is most definitely part of it, […]
Ellen Barker’s illuminating third novel, The Breaks (February 18, She Writes Press), takes a look at the deep injustice of wrongful conviction and what “freedom” means after release from prison. All this is set against the story of Marianne, white and middle-aged and struggling with her own life challenges, including sort-of dating a Black cop. Mixing […]
INSANE POSSIBILITIES by Carol Plum-Ucci Carol Plum-Ucci is the award-winning author of INSANE POSSIBILITIES, an intense psychological thriller and family drama. INSANE POSSIBILITIES introduces Toby Kellerman, an 18 year old facing a tough recovery after surviving a push down a well. Stuck in a hospital bed, he tries to unravel an even tougher mystery — […]
A TINY PIECE OF BLUE For fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds and Lisa Wingate’s Shelterwood comes a heartwarming historical novel following a homeless young girl as she struggles to survive during the Great Depression. Rural Michigan, 1934. During the throes of the Great Depression, thirteen-year-old Silstice Trayson finds herself homeless, abandoned by her parents after a devastating […]
A daring young woman takes her brother’s place to risk her life in New York City. A breathtaking historical novel full of heart and hope, family and friendship, and the sacrifices we make for love… As the Great Depression bites, show dancer Grace’s Irish immigrant family can’t afford the rising rents, nor the medicine that her […]
By Andrea J. Stein, author of Typecast and Dear Eliza When babies are born, there are celebrations galore. Showers are thrown. Gifts are given. Visits are paid. In many ways, books are authors’ babies. They take hours and hours (truthfully, years!) of work to create and cultivate, and then they face a big world full […]
by Marilyn Simon Rothstein Getting published saves time. That’s because it’s no longer necessary to spend hours yearning to be published. Nine out of ten authors are “bestselling”. The rest are “award winning”. Almost every writer was once a lawyer. Smile at this remark, “I’m constantly lending your new book to friends. Did I mention […]
Why is Book Marketing So Damn Hard? I offer a marketing mastermind for writers, called 12 weeks to Book Launch Success. In this group program, I guide novelists and memoir writers to develop a successful launch plan for their book. (If this sounds interesting, more details at the end!) Before developing my program, I interviewed […]
Things I wish I’d known about book marketing: A few specific tips for the author who wants to sell books as well as write them! (1) When people ask me how I found my agent, I tell them about Publishers Marketplace https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/. This is an enormous database that lists (nearly) every book deal, as well […]
I was at a low. I’d just broken up with my literary agent after three years, and it felt as if my publishing dreams would never come true. I couldn’t sleep. I was cranky. When The Secret by Rhonda Byrne was published in 2006, I didn’t read it but at 2am one night the Netflix […]
Here’s why. You slump, shrink, curl down in your seat, never stand up straight. As if an arrow might pick you off. Not an arrow, a bullet. Not a bullet, a blow. Not a blow, words. Not words, looks. Here’s why. You’re a freak. Four inches in one year? Your father’s colleague says he keeps […]
He wanted you to have this. It was written with exaggerated clarity on a scrap of paper, as if the author was unsure of the reader’s grasp of English. The torn paper, rather than a proper card, another signal from the sender. It was signed Elaine, with a rounded, buxom capital E. On the padded […]
Elaine Walsh Barrington revs up her white BMW and reverses the car out of the double garage behind the house. “I really don’t mind getting a taxi to the station again,” Lorna, her younger sister, says from the passenger seat. “You didn’t have to leave your New Years Day open house like this.” The clenched […]
She’s a woman who discards anything which causes sorrow or blocks her path. A man she cares for does both, and she leaves him. She takes only what she really values, an old set of books, a few china plates of her mother’s, an abstract painting she’d found in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She abhors […]
This is an account of what it was like to be nine years old and on the receiving end of the bombing power of a well-armed enemy. Like millions in London we were evacuated at the start of the war. My father went to Harpenden with the insurance company he worked for, two days before […]
Q&A with Literary Agent ERIN NIUMATA Folio Literary Management, VP and Literary Agent Erin Niumata has been in publishing for over three decades. She started as an editorial assistant at Simon and Schuster in the Touchstone/Fireside division for several years; then moved over to Harper Collins as an editor, and then she went to Avalon […]
Three years ago, I was a freelance writer with an extremely long Word document chilling on my hard drive. Today, those 98,000 words mark my shift from aspiring writer to fiction author: The Lost Night is coming out from Crown. My novel is a thriller about a woman uncovering the dark truths surrounding her best […]
A few days ago I did an interview and one of the questions was did I think having an agent was crucial in this business. The answer for me was a huge, resounding yes. My agent is Carly Watters at P.S. Literary Agency, and I literally wouldn’t be where I am now without her patient […]
A Twenty-Five-Question Interview Published as a Five Part Series Part One Part Two | Hosted by MM Finck | | Anonymously Answered By Agented Authors* with Varying Publishing Career Durations and Successes from Debut to Bestselling and Represented by Multiple Literary Agencies of Varying Sizes | QUESTION ELEVEN Historically, how many story ideas do you […]
A Twenty-Five-Question Interview Published as a Five Part Series. Read Part One HERE | Hosted by MM Finck | | Anonymously Answered By Agented Authors* with Varying Publishing Career Durations and Successes from Debut to Bestselling and Represented by Multiple Literary Agencies of Varying Sizes | QUESTION SIX Did your first agented manuscript sell? If […]
THE BLUE DOOR How much responsibility and guilt can a mother bear for a child who has done wrong? This is the question that haunts Flo when her daughter Teddy plans to visit after a long separation. The prospect of seeing Teddy brings back painful memories of Teddy’s troubled past–a young teen imprisoned for committing […]
By Kelly Oliver My new mystery series set in the late 1920’s and1930’s features the original London Detection Club, including founding members Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Gilbert Chesterton. The first in the series, The Case of the Christie Conspiracy just came out. The Detection Club is the stuff of literary legend—a gathering of the […]
I am excited to share the news of my new novel, Lunch Tales: Suellen. The way this story came about is quite different from my previous novel, Elizabeth’s Mountain, which was sparked by a dream. Lunch Tales: Suellen is drawn from my personal experience in working at a major New Jersey law firm for several years where I met a lot of […]
2024 will be the year of the woman leader! May 2024 saw the publication of my second book in the Arcana Oracle Series, High Priestess and Empress. I thought in 2024 that the stars were aligned perfectly for women leaders to be celebrated. My book series is based on the real-life Victorian women leaders, celebrity […]
By Julie Ryan McGue At age 48, I was sent for a breast biopsy. That singular event has been life-altering. First, it led to a five-year search for my birth parents, and then to a late-in-life writing career, one comprised of publishing nonfiction books, essays, blogs, and a regular column. Such is life. One step […]
Australia’s Queen of Regency Romance DG Rampton took Ten Years to Write her First Book but Now she’s an Amazon bestseller with over 100,000 downloads. By D. G. Rampton People often ask me how I became an author and I have the sense that they expect me to say it was some pre-planned career goal […]
THE PERFECT ROM-COM, Melissa Ferguson “Melissa Ferguson delivers yet another sparkling, laugh-out-loud romance!” –RaeAnne Thayne, New York Times bestselling author She’s written dozens of smash-hit romance novels. Too bad no one knows it. Aspiring author Bryony Page attends her first writers conference bursting with optimism and ready to sell her manuscript with long-shot dreams of raising awareness for […]
Nothing in life is guaranteed. As adults, we often learn this lesson painfully and without warning. As children, we hear and place trust in a seemingly linear path to success, as instructed by the adults in our lives (i.e., parents, teachers, guidance counselors, coaches). Get good grades in school, take on leadership roles in extracurricular […]
By Suzanne Kamata In February in Japan, where I have lived for the past 35 years, households with young daughters display hina ningyo, beautiful ornamental dolls representing the Emperor, Empress, and various courtiers. The dolls are arranged on tiered shelves, with the Emperor and Empress on the top. The full set is expensive, costing thousands […]
By Joanne Intrator, author of Summons to Berlin: Nazi Theft and A Daughter’s Quest for Justice I was in Edinburgh on my way to Berlin via Amsterdam to give a paper at a conference organized by Benedikt Goebel, an architectural historian and expert on East Berlin where my family’s large manufacturing building was located until […]
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