Category: How To and Tips
Being a Parent Helped Me Become a Better Writer
Being a parent and a writer often seem mutually exclusive. If you can barely find time to brush your teeth or empty the dishwasher while caring for tiny (or teenaged) humans, how can you carve out the weeks, months, or years required to craft an essay or a ninety-thousand word novel? Personally, I’m never more […]
Fiction that Makes You Think: Bringing Difficult Subjects into the Light
By Judith F. Brenner I’ve heard people say they don’t watch the news, or even skim a newspaper, because starting off your day with depressing topics is not appealing. Headline writers want to grab a reader with a fear factor. But what about fiction? I am one of many authors who has tackled difficult, uncomfortable […]
Roe v. Wade wasn’t the reason for my post-Roe novel
When I was working on THE AGE OF THE CHILD in 2015-16, I didn’t know I was—and had had no intention of—writing the “post-Roe v. Wade novel” it is. The drive behind the story wasn’t the law I’d naively assumed would never change, but society’s peculiar attitude toward parenthood. The best illustration I can think […]
Caroline Kurtz: On Writing Memoir
With my husband and sons, I moved mid-career to Nairobi, Kenya from a teaching job in Ethiopia. We’d been asked to work for four years with Nuers, the second largest ethnic group in South Sudan. It was a misbegotten and doomed assignment. Trauma from the Sudanese civil war, now in its thirtieth year, pressed on […]
A Journey Towards Change
No Stars in the Sky, by Martha Bátiz A journey towards change No Stars in the Sky features 19 stories that touch upon themes and subjects that are very close to my heart, that keep me up at night and that, more often than not, are very present in our everyday news. Like so many […]
The Power of Legacy Journaling
The Power of Legacy Journaling Merle R. Saferstein The wisdom that comes with living is a gift to share. Unlike journaling we do for ourselves, legacy journaling is written for the benefit of others. A legacy journal can be a record of one’s spiritual values, life lessons, messages from the heart, reflections, and more. Legacy […]
WHEN ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE (BUT SOMEONE HAS TO WRITE FOR IT)
By Christina Hamlett As of this writing, I’ve been involved with theatre since 1971 as an actress, director, playwright, instructor and script consultant. Is it any wonder my heart is gladdened whenever someone says, “I have an idea for a play. Can you show me how to start?” While technology has brought sophisticated changes insofar […]
Why I wrote Unbuttoned by Grace Vanderzande
In 2007, my father Jim was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. They estimated that he had four months and told him to get his affairs in order. This was a devastating diagnosis for many reasons. My father was only 77. He still had so much more to do and to share. Dad sheepishly confessed to […]
My Writing Craft by Ellie Wood, author of The Wildwater Women
My Writing Craft by Ellie Wood, author of The Wildwater Women (HarperNorth, 28 April 2022) At its heart, The Wildwater Women is a love song to the Lake District, and I set about crafting it with a love-letter level of care. The writing process was an intense, nine-month relationship, with the book ever-present in my […]
Authorial Brutality and Sugar-Coating Readers’ Experiences
A few years ago, I had the privilege of being guided in my writing by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author of Braiding Grass, among other books she has written. She taught us about the connection between writing and plant life, how to embed elements of nature into our narratives, and commented on our personal essays. […]
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