Category: Contemporary Women Writers
How Counselling Helps Me Cope With Feedback
It’s taken me fifteen years to pluck up the courage to seek out a counsellor. My written escapades into fictional worlds could only hold the metaphorical demons at bay for so long. So here I am, six months into my journey, and I feel like a spinning top laced with hallucinogenic drugs. My brain feels […]
How to Determine Who to Ask for Feedback to Your Writing
Discernment can be defined as “the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure.” This term, however, is most often associated within a spiritual context to obtain direction and understanding. But when you’re a writer, discernment is one of the most important, if not the most important factor in how you will […]
Why Bother Writing?
Imagine you are standing in front of a long, high wall built from giant moss-covered stone. Imagine that you want, more than anything, to get over that wall. The wall is festooned with ladders, allowing you to believe that getting to one of the ladders and climbing up and over the wall will be a […]
In Praise of Slow Writing (and Reading)
“[T]houghtful and quintessentially Southern … The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt unfolds like a magnolia, slowly revealing a languid beauty.” —Publishers Weekly In my household, we have pet snails. Around six common garden snails call our terrarium home, each the size of a dime, the first of which my nine-year-old daughter found in her fairy garden. […]
Write Here, Write Now
Turning something into a daily practice, be it writing or exercising or even flossing, can be a daunting process. In the case of writing, having a schedule is important. It’s also a good way to keep the writer sane. What do I mean by that? Well, a writer who is not working is a dangerous […]
HOW TO WRITE FICTION ABOUT THE UGLY PARTS OF OUR PAST
The first time I met him, my father-in-law Art regaled me with stories of the Spanish conquistador who claimed territory and opened trade routes for his queen before he traveled to California, married a local woman and sired Art’s family tree. His connection to this valiant man was a great source of pride, but what […]
Human: Know Thyself
I often wondered what would happen if I didn’t take a drink. Or eat a bag of cookies when I was stressed. Like 70% of the country, I use mildly destructive distractions to cope with everything from mid-afternoon boredom to my son’s impending puberty. I think for writers, the percentage is more like 100. Something inside […]
Colombia—Land of Magic and More Magic
“Excuse me,” I said, “I don’t believe I heard you correctly. We’re going where?” “Colombia,” my husband repeated. “Bogotá, specifically, but likely elsewhere in the country too.” “Are you out of your mind!” was my swift rejoinder. Back in 2009 drug cartels, kidnappings, and the like were synonymous with that country. It’s true that we’ve […]
How Novels Bloom
As a girl, I listened to my mother’s stories about her teenage year quarantined, deathly ill and bedridden after a diagnosis of tuberculosis in St. Paul in the mid-1940s. As an adult, upon my mother’s death, I discovered for the first time I’d been adopted as a 7 month-old infant. As a writer, I’ve used […]
The May-December Affair in Novels: The Allure Versus the Perils
The May-December Affair in Novels: The Allure Versus the Perils By Cindy Fazzi Readers have always been fascinated by May-December relationships, judging by the wide appeal of novels like Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (Tracy Chevalier). However, when the age gap is too huge, the relationship turns creepy, just like […]
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