Category: How To and Tips
My Debut Journey
My journey is similar to other debut journeys, but it’s also completely unique. I come from science, and I’ve always had a passion for writing. When I was in fourth grade, I wrote my first book. It was a story about keeping those who had left us in our hearts, and the title was Every […]
The Art Of Being Enough
The Art of Being Enough It was mid-summer. As I sat in my quiet office and edited my manuscript, the dilemmas had increased instead of decreased. I shifted passages from past tense to past perfect. I changed lacked to lost when referring to my mother’s breast. I questioned if anyone cared whether I was eight […]
Bowing To Elephants: Evolution
BOWING TO ELEPHANTS is a travel memoir with a twist. An unloved rich girl from San Francisco becomes a travel junkie to escape a dysfunctional family and a narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Thanks to a journey of healing and self-discovery, the author navigates depression, loneliness, and loss while learning how to break down the false barriers […]
Why We Love the Magic So Much: Women’s Fiction and the Supernatural By Rachel Dacus
What makes some of us crave women’s fiction that has elements of magic? In my case, it all started with the Oz books. At a formative age, I learned to identify with a kickass heroine like Dorothy, who made her way through mystifying, dangerous magical lands. I also identified with the magical female denizens of […]
Monsters
Monsters. We have always been fascinated by them: either to gather macabre evidence to prove their existence, or otherwise to emphatically disprove it. They can be fantastical, supernatural, or far too close to home – monsters who hide in plain sight, who remind us that humanity can often be a thinly-veiled concept. As a sixth-form […]
Five Tips To Help You Write A Novel About Anything
By Gila Green Novels are peppered with males and females, young and old, witches, aliens, and murderers. Yet many writers still feel limited to topics they know inside and out. What a great pity. I published a young adult novel about a teen heroine who takes on an elephant poaching ring in South Africa’s Kruger […]
What I Learned on Submission By Diane Barnes
I recently learned that my novel MORE THAN will be published on October 29, 2019. I cried big, ugly tears of joy when I received the news. It’s my third book, and I have never been that emotional about a release before. For a long time, I feared this novel would live in my bottom […]
Thirteen Things I Learned From Owning A Bookstore
Recently, my husband, Peter and I sold our beloved bookstore, The Writers’ Workshoppe and Imprint Books in Port Townsend to another couple who love books as much as we do. Now that I’ve had time to catch my breath a bit, I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned over the last twelve years […]
Love Female Characters in Crime fiction? Thank the History of Women in Noir
Grief takes people in different ways. Mrs. Allynson’s had moved her to change her chalk-stripe costume for a soft, blue housedress that fitted in her waist, fell loose along her arms and clung from her hips down. The blue was livened by a string of cut stones of a lighter shade, a dark silk flower […]
Thoughts On A Fictional Memoir
Trying to identify the source of one’s creativity is like trying to count the stars – an impossible task. However, I believe most authors can pinpoint exactly what inspired them to begin a story, fiction or nonfiction, and I can say with certainty that my novel, Katy’s Ghost, was inspired by my paternal grandmother. Gram […]
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