Category: Contemporary Women Writers
Pieces Of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters
“You should be glad you didn’t get your girls back yet,” a friend told me while we were in line at a coffee shop. “Your book will be that much better.” It was 1995, and I had just returned to Alaska from Greece after my first failed attempt to rescue my kidnapped daughters, taken by […]
Why I Wrote Les Parisiennes
In an early – and discarded – draft of the prologue to my book I wrote how one of the most common questions every author is asked when publishing a book is: ‘How long did it take you to write?’ If it did not sound so arrogant, I might this time be tempted to reply […]
Deciding What To Write
The feeling a writer has when deciding what to write about is extremely exhilarating, but also very nerve-bending. At least it was for me. I knew I wanted to write something that would be especially appealing to women in midlife – my own age group. But what story? I love to brainstorm, sometimes throwing the […]
The Kindness of Strangers
Three years ago the opportunity came my way to interview Fay Weldon for the Historical Novel Society. To say I seized on the chance would be an understatement. Weldon is a household name, a woman whose writing career spans 5 decades, who has written 34 novels and many short story collections, TV dramas and plays […]
Dealing With Serous Issues with Humor and Wit
A couple of years ago, I was pitching my first novel, WOLF (KAOS press June 2016), in New York City, and when I told a group of young women authors about the subplot and themes of date rape, party rape, and rape drugs, and I said it was a humorous mystery, some of them were […]
Cover Girls — Behind the Mask
“44 Sex Tips From Around the World — Prepare for Global Warming” . . . “Unexpected Sex Advice—How to Turn Yourself On” shouts the September 2016 cover of Cosmopolitan, one of America’s top twenty magazines by circulation. (Digital circulation 14.6 million unique visitors and growing.) The magazine’s mission: to empower young women “to own who […]
Asking Questions, Finding Community
“You ask the best questions,” Kristy Woodson Harvey exclaimed, if you’ll lend me the liberty of saying people can exclaim via email. Working at home as a writer can be a lonely business, and I’ll take human contact and emotion in any form I can get some days! But through the beautiful world of the […]
How a Smartphone Camera Can Jumpstart Your Writing
Both the camera and creative writing offer us a lens into our humanity. Every story is a snapshot of a time, place or person, and every photo has a story to tell. For me, photography and writing have always gone hand in hand. They are the push and pull of my daily routine, the way I […]
Time Management For Writers
It’s 7.07 on a Monday morning. I have just got on a train to Plymouth where I’m going to be interviewed (live!) by the BBC. I could be reading the novel that’s in my handbag. Or I could be catching up on my sleep after an early start. But instead my fingers are flying across […]
When To Call It Quits
Starting a fresh manuscript is always an exciting thing for me. The possibility of the blank page. An idea that makes my heart beat faster. Characters chattering away in my head, telling me their stories. Those are the moments I want to hole myself up in a cabin in the woods, just me and my […]
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