Category: Contemporary Women Writers
Putting flesh Upon The Bones ~ Using Creative Non-fiction to Tell Her Story
When Judy Pollard Smith came across an article on missionary Alice Seeley Harris, whose photographs brought down the Belgian Congo, she couldn’t believe she’d never heard of her before. Intrigued, she began to research, which led to her writing a biography of Alice, the woman she calls the mother of all human rights work. This […]
The Highs and Lows of Writing
When Women Writers, Women’s Books suggested that I should do another blog I was cautious. What should the subject be? Perhaps I could write on the pleasure of getting an option for a three part TV series for my novel Burnt Norton, but there are many options taken out each year on many books. Some […]
My Five Favorite Pieces of Writing Advice
Since graduating college, I’ve been a magazine journalist. The first half of my career I spent on staff as an editor at various women’s magazines, the second half as a freelance writer. I have loads of advice to share for the newly graduated who have the same dream I did — to see your name […]
The Three Golden Rules of Novel Writing
Andrea Gillies is the author of three books: the novel The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay (2014), the novel TheWhite Lie (2012), and the non-fiction book Keeper, which won the Wellcome Book Prize 2009 and the Orwell Book Prize 2010. We asked her for some novel writing advice. Knowing the terror of the blank white page, […]
Creating Characters with Invisible Disabilities
They’re all around us—people with invisible disabilities. Maybe you’re one of them; maybe your doctor or your best friend or your mother struggles with clinical depression. Maybe your son, like mine, battles obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Real people live, work, and love through mental illness. So why, when we talk about characters with invisible disabilities, do […]
Rosie Garland: From Mslexia Novel Competition to Harper Collins
This month, three judges decide the winner of the 2nd Mslexia Unpublished Novel Competition. Someone is about to receive a life-changing phone call. Two years ago, I was that woman. I never imagined I would be. Fairytales are for other folk. I’d lost faith in my writing ‘getting anywhere’: indeed, I’d lost faith in my […]
Literary Friendships
We have always felt fortunate to have found each other. Ever since meeting as young English teachers in rural Japan, when we talked of our literary ambitions over bowls of noodles and bottles of Asahi, we have shared both the uphill struggles and delightful discoveries of each other’s creative journeys. But we only recently realised […]
On mirror neurons and Schrödinger’s cat: writing as exploration
Some explore to answer questions. Others explore to ask them. The map is ridiculously simplified, as the three-block walk from the hotel has proven. I cram it in my pocket and turn into the narrow alley that apparently doesn’t exist, stepping willingly into uncertainty. No matter where I end up, I will have seen that […]
Researching Burnt Norton
Fifteen years ago Caroline moved with her husband and seven children and stepchildren to Burnt Norton, the house made famous by TS Eliot in the first of his ʻFour Quartetsʼ. Very much influenced by Eliotʼs theme of time and redemption, she started to research the strange and tragic history of the Keyt family who owned […]
Finding your Muse
It wasn’t so much a case of finding my muse, but of him finding me…and the fact that he was male and not at all like everyone else’s amenable female literary helpmeet ought to have given me a clue that I’d been sold a pup. However, in self-defence I have to say that I was […]
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