Category: How To and Tips
How I Became the Assh*le Mom by Kara Kinney Cartwright
I recently published book for teenage boys entitled, “Just Don’t Be An Assh*le: A Surprisingly Necessary Guide to Being a Good Guy.” I’m not saying I’m Miss Manners, but if we’d ever met at a party, and you had asked yourself afterward: Which of these people is most likely to write a book with a […]
Nicola Pryce: Why I Write
I wrote my first book, The Adventures of the Ten Green Bottles, when I was ten. I can remember being totally absorbed when writing it, even obsessed. Each bottle had a very distinct character, a name, and an adventure that matched their personality. Some made it back to the wall, others were way-laid by dastardly […]
Kelly Oliver, On Writing Historical Fiction
I love reading historical mysteries—Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody, Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, Rhys Bowen’s Georgiana Rannoch, Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry. Recently, I wrote my first historical mystery, Betrayal at Ravenswick, a WW1 mystery featuring file clerk turned spy, Fiona Figg. It’s 1917, the height of the Great War, and a suspicious South African war correspondent […]
Pandemic Writing Lessons
There’s no other way to say it: these weeks since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out have been extraordinary. Unprecedented. I’m not even sure the English language has an adequate adjective to describe this time. Possibly German does, with its magnificent ability to combine disparate words into one powerhouse concept. But I’m left with my own […]
My Memoir Motivation
Over the years, I’ve attended writing workshops, seminars, classes, courses, lectures, TED talks, conferences, panels, virtual writing groups, as well as reading countless author interviews. After each one, I’d drive, walk, or bus it home, inspired, motivated, and thinking that I had something substantive to say. It would usually last until the following day when […]
Discovering Emma Koehler
Four generations of my family have lived in San Antonio. Though I claim it as my birth town, I grew up in Denver. At the time, everyone I knew was from Colorado, so when someone asked where I was from, I proudly said, “I was born in Texas.” There was something exotic about it back […]
In Service to Love: Living on the Edge of Creation
In Service to Love began the morning of December 26, 2017. When I awoke, I felt immediately overcome with Love, appreciation, and enveloped in the rich, palpable presence of the sacred divine. I could feel and see the exquisite, brilliant light of Masters, and the Elohim before me. I could do no other than sob. […]
Who Writes a Memoir?
Friends asked what inspired me to write a memoir. My son was blunter: “Mom who writes a memoir – it’s not normal.” Indeed, few of us write memoirs. Unless we are writers by profession or famous, I would venture to guess for most of us the route to inspiration is circuitous. I would like to […]
Moving Beyond Trauma by Ilene Smith
Moving Beyond Trauma by Ilene Smith In my early forties, after a career in banking and real estate financing, I returned to school for a master’s degree in mental health counseling. I truly had no idea that this path would lead me to my greatest passion in life thus far. During my internship to complete […]
Writing Political Satire In ‘Interesting Times’
When I first had the idea for a satirical novel set in the near future the world was relatively sane. I happily imagined a post-politics system of government where nations are run by randomly selected citizens, just like jury service. The self-evident truth that politicians are the last people you want in charge of anything […]
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