Category: Contemporary Women Writers
The Language of Sisters: A Conversation with Cathy Lamb
In Cathy Lamb’s beautiful new novel, The Language of Sisters , she weaves together a tale of family, following sisters, Toni, Valerie, and Ellie Kozlovsky, as they grapple with their family’s past in the Soviet Union and their own futures. The Kozlovsky sisters find the power of love to carry them through, and readers will […]
Writing About Online Bullying
In the summer of 2014, I was equally deep into freelance writing as mothering. This meant that my days started at the crack of dawn, coffee in hand, typing fingers at the ready. I kept my stature as still and as quiet as possible, not out of pristine habits, but out of fear of waking […]
Don’t Kill Your Darlings, Set Them Free
For writers, often the most frightening advice we receive is to “kill our darlings”¾to cut loose those Hope diamonds that, while gorgeous, are sinking the boat we’re trying to steer to shore¾the beautiful opening sentence that doesn’t tie in whatsoever with the opening paragraph (or the rest of the story), the intense supporting character who […]
How To Use Pinterest As A Writing Tool
At first blush, it may seem a little odd to consider a pictorial social media site like Pinterest a valid writing tool. After all, most users pin things like home decorating ideas, crafts, recipes, and vacation wish lists. But as an author, I also find it to be an invaluable research tool for characters, setting, […]
Look Away. You Don’t Want to See This.
He narrowed his eyes…with downcast eyes…her eyes darted to the window…she found him with her eyes…her eyes glistened with unshed tears…he blinked in surprise…she stared in amazement…he focused on the ground. Do you see the theme? These phrases are only a handful of the many I found in the rough draft of my work in […]
How Writing a Book Taught Me the Pleasures of Cooking
For the first 27 years of my life I didn’t cook much. Once I got married, Søren, my husband, did most of the cooking at home. I could follow a recipe if I needed to, but I couldn’t just look in the fridge as my husband could and put a meal together. I was never […]
Write the Story You Know
Write what you know. That’s what everyone says. But if you aren’t confident you know anything, writing what you know can seem inadequate. I spent far too many years trying to write about things I thought I should know. My real success as a writer didn’t begin until I finally started writing about the heart-wrenching, […]
The Goodbye Year: A Conversation with Kaira Rouda
It’s only fitting that Kaira Rouda’s latest novel, The Goodbye Year, (http://www.kairarouda.com/) takes place on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. All of the characters in the novel stand on an edge—the divide between who they were and what they can become as they face graduation, divorce, and even the prospects of staying together. As […]
Learning The Ropes As A Hybrid Author
Smart people disagree on whether traditional publishing or self-publishing is the way to go, or whether it’s getting easier or harder for new writers to break into the business, but most people will agree on one thing: the game is changing. In the last few years, I hear more and more about authors who leave […]
Finding Where You Fit In The Writing World
I’m still waiting for A Great Voice to come from Above and say “You are official now. You can call yourself a writer.” In spite of 36 years worth of writing and publishing I cringe when somebody introduces me as a writer. But being someone who writes is no different than being someone who canoes. […]
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