Empowering Stories: The Strength of Writing Communities Creating a writing community was not one of those things I imagined in my future when I was young. And yet, it is something for which I’m deeply grateful, especially in this time of midlife. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spent my lifetime journaling, reading, even writing a few […]
By Candice Black I made numerous attempts at writing a memoir before completing my first and I always seemed to get stuck within the first two chapters. The majority of ‘Emerging: An Artistic Practice Saved My Life’ was written over the course of a month, my suddenly ability to write the book I’d wanted to […]
By Catherine Kullman “Write about the inspiration for your latest book,” Barbara Bos suggested. “What is your [new] book about?” A seemingly innocent question that can put the heart across the most experienced author, and one that requires different answers depending on who is asking. If it is your editor or agent, they want a […]
Empowering Stories: The Strength of Writing Communities Creating a writing community was not one of those things I imagined in my future when I was young. And yet, it is something for which I’m deeply grateful, especially in this time of midlife. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spent my lifetime journaling, reading, even writing a few […]
By Candice Black I made numerous attempts at writing a memoir before completing my first and I always seemed to get stuck within the first two chapters. The majority of ‘Emerging: An Artistic Practice Saved My Life’ was written over the course of a month, my suddenly ability to write the book I’d wanted to […]
By Catherine Kullman “Write about the inspiration for your latest book,” Barbara Bos suggested. “What is your [new] book about?” A seemingly innocent question that can put the heart across the most experienced author, and one that requires different answers depending on who is asking. If it is your editor or agent, they want a […]
Beth Brookhart Author of The Four Queens of the Buttonbush Museum When I sat down to write The Four Queens of the Buttonbush Museum, I knew I wasn’t exactly hitting the usual marks of “women’s fiction.” No cozy mysteries with quaint teacups and clever cats. No sweeping romances with ripped bodices and heaving bosoms. Just […]
By Bonnie Yochelson In 1987, I accepted a job as Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Museum of the City of New York. I had worked in print rooms for several years and earned a PhD in modern art history. Now I had full responsibility for a remarkable collection that needed a lot of […]
What is the spark that ignites your creativity? What sets your imagination on fire, sending you to your laptop or notebook to record those thoughts before they fly away? What keeps you moving forward? This is the best part of writing, letting the words fly across the page as your characters take shape and you […]
By Christina Consolino When I first began writing my latest novel, The Marriage Debt, I had women readers in mind. After all, the main topic—menopause—is a “normal” part of aging that affects many women. As I fleshed out Nika and her husband, Ethan, their relationship, Nika’s relationship with others, and how prevalent perimenopausal and menopausal […]
As I wake this morning after another night of badly broken sleep, I see my pencils sitting there on the nightstand in the half-light, their points dulled from the last time I used them. Which was—when? My weary thought is, I can’t write this morning. My pencils are dull. My pencils are pointless, literally and figuratively. […]
A micro fiction challenge might be the most fun you can have while improving your writing If you’d told me a few years ago that a micro fiction challenge would change my mind about writing super short stories, I probably would have scoffed. Because writing short is hard (and writing short and well is even […]
By Susan Fletcher My mother was a chemist. Back in the 1940s, she did some of the first research on smog in the Los Angeles basin. One of my sisters is a mathematician and computer scientist; my other sister is a physical therapist. My sister-in-law runs a biochemistry lab at Stanford, and my daughter has […]
Fine, I’m a Terrible Person Fine, I’m a Terrible Person is a funny, heart wrenching adult mother daughter story. It begins when 73-year-old, worn out, former beauty, Aurora Hmans Feldenburg, a hapless, perpetually broke, eccentric, divorcee living in the wealthy enclave of Marin County in Northern California, is wakened by a phone call informing her […]
Pamela N. Harris Interviews Naomi Henry and Kylie Brooks from This Town is on Fire THIS TOWN IS ON FIRE Sharply written, this YA drama tells the story of what happens when the latest internet “Karen” happens to be your best friend. A lot is up in the air in Naomi Henry’s life: her spot […]
Charity Trickett is Not So Glamorous Bridget Jones fans will fall hard for this based-on-a-true-story, behind-the-scenes tale of a young woman’s calamitous adventures trying to break into the movie industry in 1990s Hollywood. Hollywood, 1997. When Charity Trickett moves to LA to assist the director of the biggest blockbuster film of the year, she quickly […]
THE EXPAT AFFAIR An American expat‘s startling discovery plunges her into the glamorous but deadly world of Amsterdam’s diamond industry. Following a nasty divorce, Rayna Dumont came to Amsterdam for a fresh start. She’s never been the type for a one-night stand, but this move is all about adventure, and Xander is handsome and successful […]
Today I’ll be interviewing Maurelle, a spying maid who snuck into my debut novel, Behold the Bird in Flight, when I wasn’t looking. The story tells of Isabelle, King John’s second wife. A romantic headstrong girl who caught King John’s eye. He married her, took her to England, and made her queen where she grew […]
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 Baker of Lost Memories From the author of A Castle in Brooklyn comes an epic novel spanning decades about the broken bonds of family, memories of war, and redemption and hope in the face of heartbreaking loss. Growing up in 1960s Brooklyn, Lena wants to be a baker just like her mother was back in Poland […]
by Claire R.McDougall “Every village has its idiot. Locharbert in Scotland had three.” This is the opening line of my novel “Mrs. McPhealy’s American,” and I think in those couple of lines the tenor of the book is set. I grew up in Scotland in a wee town like Locharbert, and then, like Steinbeck did […]
‘Unintentional Medium’ who switched from memoir to fiction. Perceived wisdom tells us that everyone has a book in them, and I do believe this is true. The question is what separates a rather ordinary story from a great book? Well, my guess is belief; belief in yourself and belief in your book. My own path […]
By Elizabeth Parman A few years ago I was scrolling social media when a post from a friend caught my eye. Bees Attend Keeper’s Funeral read the newspaper clipping from the June 4, 1956 Danville Bee. The article went on to explain that a beekeeper from the Berkshire mountains, John Zepka, was buried in a […]
The English Masterpiece “Art . . . London . . . Seventies Glam . . . Yesss, please. The English Masterpiece by Katherine Reay has ALL the goodies–especially for historical fiction lovers and art aficionados . . . Buckle your seatbelt as all hell breaks loose.” –Lisa Barr, New York Times bestselling author of The Goddess of Warsaw Set in […]
By Sara Hamdan I didn’t set out to write a novel. Not at the start. My first piece for The New York Times was about the rise of stand-up comedy in the Middle East. I was on assignment in Dubai, wearing my journalist hat—sleuthing out the funniest voices across the region, asking serious questions like, […]
By Brooke Deanne, Author of Shattered, Broken & Beautiful I never set out to write a memoir. I set out to survive. To simply make sense of the shattered, and broken pieces of my life. To piece myself back together after years of religious oppression, narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma, and deeply buried sexual abuse that […]
By Juliet Greenwood The book I’m working on at the moment is based around a garden. That’s not surprising, as most of my stories involve gardens in one way or another – after all, my first published novel is called Eden’s Garden, and you can’t get more garden than that! Until this year, I wasn’t […]
A Note from Jill Tingley, Star of JILL IS NOT HAPPY Dear Fellow Women (and I use that term loosely for some of you), Since you’re all so fascinated with women’s stories, you simply must read JILL IS NOT HAPPY —if only to learn how a real woman handles the complexities of marriage, motherhood, and […]
By Judith Keim One of the first questions a reader has when she opens a book is Who? What? Where? In women’s fiction, the author must introduce the hero or heroine to the reader, identify a location, and give the reader an idea of what it is the heroine or hero wants. That then sets […]
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