Category: Contemporary Women Writers
Writing Team Spirit
Writing a book is a wonderful, yet often lonely business, especially when writing a book about togetherness and the power of camaraderie, like The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. After spending days laboring in front of a laptop in an empty room, I can quickly become fraught with plot-related anxieties, character qualms, voice worries, and that omnipresent […]
Talent Is Nice; Desire Is Everything
The only reason I’m a writer is because when I ask myself, “What else would I do?” I have no answer. I mean, I literally have no answer. Yes, I might have distant, romantic dreams of becoming an architect, but I do not possess the necessary skills – not even close. For me, adding three […]
From Blogging To Memoir
During the last six or seven years I owned and ran my bed and breakfast, I began writing again on a regular basis, sometimes 4-5 hours a day. It all started when I visited my youngest daughter and her husband one Christmas. He was in marketing and was constructing a new blog for his business. […]
Behind Every Great Man: The Forgotten Women Behind the World’s Famous and Infamous
“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” Virginia Woolf The idea for Behind Every Great Man was the result of serendipity-and it arrived through the unlikely person of former First Lady Laura Bush. In a White House roast, she likened herself to a character from Desperate Housewives. “I am married to the president of […]
Overcoming Mom Guilt: Why I Un-Quit
When fellow mothers of young children found out that I was a writer, some smugly said that sure, they’d like to write too, but couldn’t possibly take the time from their children. No, those mothers would write when their children were grown. Cue mom guilt. I had several little ones, a demanding church assignment, a […]
The Year I Gave Up Submitting to Literary Magazines
At the end of every calendar year, I review my writing life to assess what I’ve accomplished and to see where my creative path is leading me. What’s working and what isn’t? What patterns are there, and what are they telling me? As 2015 drew to a close, I reviewed my submissions log and noted […]
Q&A with Literary Agent Christopher Rhodes of The Stuart Agency
Prior to joining The Stuart Agency, Christopher Rhodes was an agent at The James Fitzgerald Agency. Previous to that, he worked at The Carol Mann Agency and in the sales and marketing departments at Simon and Schuster. Specializing in literary fiction and nonfiction, Christopher is actively seeking queries in the following areas: literary fiction and […]
Writing About Female Friendships In Novels
My phone vibrates and dings, the sound so frequent that it’s almost playing a tune. The rhythm is unsteady, yet familiar. A ding here, a ding there. Two dings back to back, and then one a few seconds later. I know exactly what I’ll see when I pick up my phone: messages filled with party […]
Finding the Pearl: Why I wrote Ghost Variations
Why do you start to write a book? Perhaps more than that, why do you finish it? There are enough books in the world already: why do you need to add yours? The reason I started Ghost Variations is not the same reason I finished it. I can’t count the number of times I nearly […]
Dodging Bullets
When we wake up each morning, we never know what to expect. A bus might run us down. A drive-by shooter might gun us down. A mugger might knock us down. A terrorist or lone madman might blow us up. A heart attack might finish us off. And so on. None of us knows what […]
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