Category: How To and Tips
Writing to Heal: A Personal Journey by Linda C. Wisniewski
Writing to Heal: A Personal Journey by Linda C. Wisniewski Take a walk through any bookstore, and you’ll see that memoirs are among the most popular books sold today. People from all walks of life are putting their stories together for their families, friends and for publication. They write for self-expression, to share their struggles […]
Navigating a High Tide of Publishing and Personal Responsibility
“How’s the book doing?” a friend of mine asked. “And when’s the next one coming out?” She didn’t know it, but my friend had touched a sensitive nerve with her two seemingly benign questions. Earlier in the year, I’d set a deadline for myself. By a particular date, I’d have researched at least a handful […]
Why Writing Rituals Matter
When I was a little girl, I remember reading about rituals that sports people and creative professionals followed. I often wondered if superstition or practices that didn’t present scientific proof…had a place in their profession. But as I grew older, I realized that whatever centers you and nourishes your focus (and doesn’t hurt someone else […]
Our Co-authoring Adventure
Our Co-authoring Adventure By Penny Koepsel and Claire Matturro We—an attorney/author and a psychologist—were strangers when we decided to write a novel about teen students in a boarding school who are gaslighted into being labeled “the crazy girls, the ones who lie.” Inspired by a true story, Wayward Girls (Red Adept Publishing Aug. 10, 2021), […]
How to Be a Vodka Snob
How How to Be a Vodka Snob came to be—and what I learned from the (delicious) research Brittany Jacques Writing a book with your spouse is an interesting venture. Thankfully, there was vodka involved. All kidding aside, the research and writing of How to be a Vodka Snob was incredibly fun and contracting the book […]
Tessa Lunney: My Writing Process
My writing process In 2018, this site was generous enough to host me talking about my writing practice – you can find that piece here. Rather than repeat myself, I thought I would talk to it, to see what has changed and what has remained fundamentally the same. My daily routine In 2018 I wrote: […]
The Shape of Storytelling by Meghan Holloway
I fell in love with writing during a scriptwriting course in college. I had recently switched my major from math to creative writing, and the scriptwriting class taught by a theatre professor was my first workshop. Storytelling in its written form was the passion that nourished me, challenged me, and drove me. It was always […]
Writing About Palliative Care Within A Romantic Comedy: Is It Possible To Laugh In The Face Of Death?
Writing about palliative care within a romantic comedy. Is it possible to laugh in the face of death? When I started writing Love Life as a romantic comedy, I knew immediately that I wanted to set it in a hospice – a cathedral of powerful human emotions and the perfect place to observe a whole […]
How I Got My Agent: A Lesson in Resilience and Hope
After spending roughly seventeen months from Labor-of-love first draft to polished, agent-ready manuscript, I was ready to send out my first compelling query letter. I wanted to send it to agents who were looking for women’s fiction. In the days before the magical interwebs, you’d have to purchase the massive Publisher’s Marketplace book, a tome […]
From a Haunted Graveyard to a Historical Novel
Nancy Hayes Kilgore My daughter looks puzzled. “I thought we came to see a prison,” she says. The soft yellow stone and harmonious planes of the Greyfriars Kirk, surrounded by a shady park and weathered gravestones, with no prison in sight, feels like a serene oasis in the middle of Edinburgh. But we have come […]
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