Category: Contemporary Women Writers
Ancestors As Inspiration
My family history gave me the courage I needed to start my career as a novelist. I can remember a decade ago writing down in Julia Cameron’s The Writer’s Way that I really wanted to write a novel and learn French, but in the years before Amazon I had no idea how to make that […]
Moving from Fact to Fiction
Working as a journalist is more than a job: if you do it long enough, it becomes a state of mind. True to the cliché, you suspect everyone does have a story to tell. And with each story you hear, real life appears more outlandish than the most melodramatic plot. Most of all, when you […]
Who Influences You?
When I think about the authors who have influenced me, I have to go back in time—to my early teens—when I started reading gothic novels from authors like Daphne du Maurier and Charlotte Brontë. I loved the idea of a heroine coming to the house of a family she didn’t know and finding out all […]
Social Media: To Share Or Not To Share?
In this golden age of social media, I still find it a bit of a novelty that I can tweet my favourite author. Even more so on the occasions when they tweet me back! Having this kind of direct access to an author would have been unimaginable just 20 years ago. Back in the old […]
What to Learn from Frozen, Besides the Words to ‘Let It Go’
When Frozen debuted in 2013, my daughter was two months old. I thought I missed “Frozen Fever.” Nope. A few months back, we caught it on the Disney Channel and my daughter promptly requested to have her own copy, the sing-along edition. We have Frozen sheets, cups, plates and bowls, utensils, dolls (Elsa and Olaf), […]
What’s the Point of Point of View?
The changing use of point of view has had an impact on everything I’ve written. The most visible example is in The Last Woman Standing, a historical novel about Wyatt Earp’s true love, Josephine Marcus, which I wrote and rewrote over a period of years and stages of child development. In the final manuscript the […]
Light after Dark
My little boy spoke of wanting to die. His statements came out of the blue at innocuous moments – once when we were playing with Lego on the living room floor. Yet his reception class teacher described his smile as ‘lighting up the room’. Perhaps that light shone all the more brightly for its contrast […]
Everyday Magic
My love affair with magical fiction began at seven years old, when I inhaled A Wrinkle In Time. I still remember the goosebumps that spread across my gangly arms and legs when Mrs. Whatsit blew into Meg’s life and proclaimed, “Wild nights are my glory!” This anticipation of the impossible has yet to loosen its […]
Let’s talk Book Translations!
Let’s talk… in a different language… or in my case let my books talk. I have just a smattering of French, German and Russian at my disposal so that I can order a beer in those three languages and say thank you in a few more. Impressive – it is not. However, my books have […]
Library Love
Daughter of the legendary Danish journalist Leif Blaedel and revered actress Annegrethe Nissen, Blaedel founded Denmark’s first crime publishing house in 1993 with SARA B. Subsequently her numerous talents extended to writing thrillers herself and being voted as the most popular author in Denmark four times as well as selling into 37 territories. She tells […]
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