Category: Contemporary Women Writers
How My Degree in Sociology Influences Me as an Author
I am often asked what inspires the books I write. Like many authors, my standard response is that inspiration can come from anywhere: a news story, a poem, a song, or a conversation I overhear on the street. But when I step back and consider this question from a broader perspective, I realize that what […]
After The Kids Are Gone, What’s Next?
When trying to decide what to write about next, I think about an issue or topic I’d like to explore and then figure out who is going to tell the story. My first book, The Good Life, examines the popular American belief that living a good life is dependent on material abundance, with a CEO’s […]
The Truth About My Memoir
I’ve written articles and blogs and given many talks—both before and after my book was published—about why I wrote my memoir. It’s not that the reasons I talked and wrote about aren’t true; it’s just that they weren’t fiercely true. Accessing my truth hasn’t always come easy. Let’s just say the truth played hide and […]
Bad Girls
She’s just too mean. That’s the comment I heard from an agent about the protagonist in the manuscript that I was pitching about nine years ago. That’s fine, I thought. Different strokes, right? Then I heard it again from a different agent that I had queried: “She’s so mean. It makes me not care about […]
Surviving the Dank and Lonely Editing Cave
As I write in this terribly uncomfortable chair, I’ve just finished over five months of straight editing. Five. Straight. Months. All writers know the woes of editing: The empty loneliness that sometimes accompanies us in our dark, dank, and dusty writing caves. The desire to slam your face into your keyboard because hey, maybe that […]
Houses As Inspiration
We talk about how our relationships have changed us but comparatively little about how a love affair with a house can alter the course of our thinking and our lives. Where we live is our second skin, for women often part of our identity, so perhaps it’s no wonder that all my novels have been […]
The Distracted Writer
It is always my intention to turn off wi-fi when I write. It has yet to happen. What if I need to look something up? After all, I write historical fiction and there is always a fact to check, a photo to look at, a map to consider. I often wonder how people wrote before […]
It’s Not Rejection; It’s Feedback.
I imagine the easygoing among us don’t remember their first time receiving constructive criticism; teflon, some people, or indifferent. Not me. In primary school the report card system was E for excellent, S for satisfactory, and U for unsatisfactory. I swam in a pool of excellence until the day I received an S in handwriting. By the […]
Q&A with Evan Gregory, Senior Literary Agent Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
Evan Gregory began at Ethan Ellenberg in 2008. He is currently expanding his client list. He has widespread interests including: FICTION – Horror, Mystery, Thrillers, Science-fiction, Fantasy, Women’s literature. NONFICTION – Arts, Cinema, Photography, Biography, Memoir, Business, Investment, Cooking, Food, Wine, Health, Diet, History, Nature, Ecology, Parenting, Family, Politics, Current affairs, Pop culture, Entertainment, Science, […]
How To Write What Hurts
You have a story to tell; something you’ve experienced that can help other people. It’s been burning inside of you, screaming that you give it a voice. But, as I know too well, sitting in front of the computer is a completely different animal. Words freeze up as thoughts refuse to be expressed. Memories hide […]
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