Category: Contemporary Women Writers
Why I Write Funny Feminist Noir
When I was in grad school, I dated a guy who would dress me up in skimpy outfits, lock me in handcuffs, and put me in a box. No, not like that! He was a magician and I was his assistant. My kitten, Merlin, was his magic rabbit. He would pull Merlin from a hat […]
The Stories of Your Life: Ways to Use Autobiography in Your Fiction
A common trope is that everyone has at least one story to tell, presumably the story of their life, but not everyone chooses to tell that story in writing, either as memoir or as thinly disguised fiction. Of course, even those who do write may create worlds, characters, and plots that are far from the […]
Friday Night at the Olympia Theater
Jean P. Moore grew up in Miami, Florida. She began her professional career as a high school English teacher and worked for a number of years as executive director of workforce development. Jean has since returned to her first loves: the study of literature and writing. Her novel Water on the Moon was published in June 2014 […]
Organic Coherence: Enhancing A Scene’s Effectiveness
How many times have we heard that every scene must have a goal, conflict, and pivot, concluding with an upward or downward shift in the protagonist’s journey? The formulation sounds right and, to an extent, it is. Like most generic advice, however, it’s too rigid and mechanical; something’s left out. That’s because we need to […]
Why I Read and Write about Illness
The thought of a hospital scares some people. Some people think hospital cafeteria food is awful. Some people expect to read a whole book without any bodily fluids making an appearance. I am not one of these people. I love the hospital, the food, and those free little booties they give you. I have had […]
AUTHORS INTERVIEWING THEIR CHARACTERS; Amy Blumenfeld
Interview with Becca Scardino from THE CAST, by Amy Blumenfeld Becca, thank you for taking the time to chat with us. My pleasure! Thanks for having me. So, how does it feel to have a book written about your group of friends? Surreal. Honestly, I laughed the first time Amy approached us with the idea. […]
The Worst Piece of Writing Advice I Ever Received (And How it Eventually Became The Best Piece!)
Over the years I think I must have read hundreds and hundreds of pages of writing advice. I’ve written stories for as long as I can remember and so I inhaled every piece of advice I could find – good and bad. The one that kept cropping up was that old classic “Write what you […]
Vision Boards for Authors
Writing for the self-help and personal development genre means I have to walk the walk and talk the talk in my day to day life. Fortunately, I’m also the founder of the Motivate Me Academy so helping women to be the best they can be is in the job description. Using the tools and techniques […]
Writing Fiction About Sexual Abuse And Sexual Violence In The Era Of #MeToo
Sexual abuse is a challenging subject to write about in fiction. The sexual abuse of children is especially challenging given the strong emotions evoked by the topic. We are sensitive to the language used to describe sex, even more so when it involves transgression. Novels have been banned for overstepping the mark of what is […]
What My Facebook Post Taught Me About Writing
Nothing is Simple I’m not one to shy away from criticism. In college, creative writing professors not only taught me how to adapt to it but how to charge towards it, arms outstretched shouting, “here I am, make me stronger”. I hadn’t anticipated the impact that would have with one simple post on a writer’s […]
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