Category: Contemporary Women Writers
Sticking with It
When my contemporary YA novel, Wesley James Ruined My Life, hits bookshelves next July I will be 42 years old. Forty-two is not old (at least, I like to think it’s not!), but it did take me a bit longer than some to land a book deal. There are examples of authors who hits it […]
Writing the Unthinkable
When I first started to write, it was to escape. I longed, like a snorkeler, to slip beneath cool waters and linger below the surface of another world. Bangkok was a city burning on its fringes with protests, and I began by invoking these sights and smells. This grew into a novel, a portrait of […]
Reaching Back and Recovering Women’s Voices
My passion is bringing women back from the past. I wrote Wilde’s Women when I realised that (male, for the most part) biographers had largely ignored the brilliant women who helped make Oscar Wilde the man he was. That’s why, last Saturday, 26 November, having spent two intensive days sitting in a lecture theatre in […]
Why It’s Important To Write -and Read- Romance and Erotica In An Age Of Plentiful Porn
He’s one of my oldest friends, and so, when the words come out of his mouth, I first think I’ve misheard him. “Excuse me?” I say. And he says it again, and I ask him to repeat it, again. No, that’s what he actually said. “How do your parents feel about your new career as […]
How To Hook Your Readers From The Start
Leave it to the French. Earlier this year La Prixe de la Page 112, a French literary prize inspired by a quote from a Woody Allen film, announced their shortlist. The winner? The best page 112, chosen by jury, of that year’s new French releases, the contention being that by page 112 the editor and […]
An Open Letter to Writers at Every Stage of Publishing
Dear Writer, Isn’t it amazing how we wake in the pre-dawn hours, or stay up well past midnight to write? We sit alone at our desks with our words, letting them flow as a plot unfolds. In time, a story transpires, a manuscript is finished, and a book published. Writing is a lonely, isolated road […]
Three Things I Wish I’d Known as an Expectant Author
“Please keep in mind; this is just my first book.” This is what I began telling friends and family several months ago when I was still up to my eyeballs in anxiety and final edits of my memoir, Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters. I followed the announcement with a bunch of reasons why […]
Writing Outside My Comfort Zone
I confess: I’m not into fan fiction. It’s just not my thing. I’ve always been the kind of writer who likes to create my own world and characters. As a reader, I’ve just never explored all the fan fiction out there. But I am a fan of several series. I adore Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache […]
Connecting With Writers In The Real World
Why joining a writing group is so important.. When I originally had the dream of becoming a writer it was back in the days when you could hide away in your garret with your typewriter, go under a clever pseudonym, and no one need ever know! These days the life of a writer is very […]
My Eight Book Deal
I can honestly say that I spent the first fifteen to twenty years of my writing life constructing stories that burned inside me but using characters I thought publishers and agents would like. Over the years the majority of rejections stated ‘we liked it but we just didn’t love it’. This comment caused me to […]
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