Category: Contemporary Women Writers
The Journey from Dream to Book
A fictional imagination of one of the most innovative designers of his time debut novel “Magician of Light” (She Writes Press, May 17, 2022) by J Fremont, is an in depth exploration of René Lalique’s adolescent years in Paris, his journey from student to leading glass manufacturer, and his real-life romance with Lucinda Haliburton. This […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Robin Farrar Maass
Authors Interviewing Characters: Robin Farrar Maass The Walled Garden is an academic mystery novel about an American grad student who comes to England to finish her doctoral dissertation about an English garden writer and soon finds herself on the trail of a decades-old mystery, in a fight to save the writer’s historic gardens, and in […]
Mental Health Awareness Month: Reading List
According to Mental Health America, “19.86% of adults are experiencing a mental illness,” which is “equivalent to nearly 50 million Americans,” and “15.08% of youth (age 12-17) report suffering from at least one major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year.” These figures refer to reported cases, and mental health professionals believe that the true […]
Inspiration Behind THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE
Amanda Geard High in the beams of the derelict Georgian house my husband and I renovated in southwest Ireland we discovered a hidden message – obscured by lime and horse hair – left by a long-dead carpenter. When this comes down, pray for me. Tim O’Shea, 1911. It was 2018, and we took that slip […]
From Bookstagrammer to Author: Amy Lea
A lifetime love of reading I’ve written fiction since I was old enough to write full sentences in crayon. As a pre-teen, I’d sit for hours on my family desktop secretly writing angsty teen love triangle romances (which may or may not have been loosely inspired by true events). Then, I’d walk the vast distance […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Connie Hertzberg Mayo
The Sharp Edge of Mercy by Connie Hertzberg Mayo (Heliotrope Books, pub. date May 6, 2022), is about a nursing assistant in 1890 at the New York Cancer Hospital. It’s a beautifully written, gripping novel about social inequities, medical ethics, and the enduring challenges for women in healthcare and the workplace. Told by an indomitable and likable young heroine, […]
Inspiration for Waterbury Winter
Inspiration for Waterbury Winter Ordinary events can sometimes trigger unusual results. In the case of fiction writing, serendipity can spark imagination. Waterbury Winter began that way, after an excursion to a drugstore one wintry day. My husband and I were visiting family in a cold part of the country for Christmas. On December 26th we […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Jacinda Townsend
MOTHER COUNTRY Saddled with student loans, medical debt, and the sudden news of her infertility after a major car accident, Shannon, an African American woman, follows her boyfriend to Morocco in search of relief. There, in the cobblestoned medina of Marrakech, she finds a toddler in a pink jacket whose face mirrors her own. With […]
You’ve Got to Have Grit: My Path to Publication
by Debbie Schrack One of my favorite novels of all time is a classic western by Charles Portis called True Grit. In the story, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross teams up with a burned-out U.S. marshal and a Texas ranger to pursue her father’s killer, Tom Chaney, through hostile territory. Although Mattie doesn’t have the experience of […]
Strange Journeys: What Writing The Line Between Taught Me By Tosca Lee
Strange Journeys: What Writing The Line Between Taught Me By Tosca Lee Writing a novel is always a journey—into history or the future, your beliefs or values, into fantastic worlds or the mystery of the everyday one around us. Into what fascinates and terrifies us. It’s also a writing journey as well, each book doling […]
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