Category: On Writing
The Bulls, The Bears and the Bea’s Knees: The Inspiration Behind The Trade Off
I’m not a finance person. When I decided to apply to business schools for an MBA, my mom refused to believe I didn’t mean a master’s degree in journalism or creative writing. Even after business school, I found the stock market boring. That changed in January of 2021. The stock of a failing video game […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Julie Edelman
The Accidental Sisterhood Jules Malone has sworn off love after two failed relationships: one with an abusive fiancé whom she calls her white knight-mare, and the other with a nice-but-boring ex with whom she co-parents their son, Max. But then one fateful Christmas Eve, Jules meets Sean, a twinkly-eyed charmer with a captivating smile and […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Laurie Notaro
THE MURDERESS Anne LeRoi moved to Phoenix in 1930 with her friend, Sammy Samuelson, so that Sammy could recover from tuberculosis. They met in Alaska when Sammy was an elementary school teacher and Anne was an X-ray technician. They quickly made the acquaintance with Ruth Judd, a medical secretary who worked at the Grunow Clinic, […]
History Rhymes, Repeats and Backpedals
By Melissa Connelly When I began writing my novel, What Was Lost, I thought I was opening a window into an earlier time that would illuminate America’s past before Roe v. Wade. But progress isn’t a straight line; sometimes it takes us back to a place we thought we’d left for good. I had no […]
Zelly Ruskin: How I Became An Author
Zelly Ruskin: How I Became An Author I worked in adoption in the 80s, became a mother in the 90s and had fertility issues. In writing my book, Not Yours to Keep, I drew from each of these emotional and personal experiences, but they aren’t how my author story started. It begins at the most […]
MORAL TREATMENT by Stephanie Carpenter: Excerpt
MORAL TREATMENT a novel By Stephanie Carpenter In 1889, seventeen-year-old Amy Underwood is committed to a psychiatric hospital in northern Michigan. Feeling abandoned by her loved ones, she finds solace in her friendship with a spirited fellow patient, Letitia. Yet as Amy becomes more comfortable at the hospital, she faces a troubling reality: not everyone […]
Animal Antics and Inspiration by Fern Michaels
By Fern Michaels I’ve been an animal lover all my life, but dogs have been the main focus. It didn’t matter if they were mutts, or pure bred. If they needed a home, I let them move in. At one point I had six at the same time, which is probably why they play such […]
The Real Life Making of a Fictional Psychologist
By Jenny Milchman Content warning: mention of violence against animals I always wanted to be a writer. I was that kid with her nose in a book, sneaking away at sleepovers to pore over the new-to-me volumes on my friends’ shelves, treasure chests each and every one. When I was in college and studying creative […]
Unlocking Family Secrets by Francine Falk-Allen
I was sitting across from my aunt Dorothy in a church recreation room, after yet another memorial service for one of my mother’s many brothers in 2001. Mom was born in 1908, had died in 1993, the eldest of twelve children (even more, I later learned), and I thought I’d heard all the stories there […]
Writing Version 2.0
Writing Version 2.0 A writer’s life, and career, is ever changing. Written and rewritten with every project we take on, each blank page we sit down to. And there’s another way in which we writers are always getting tossed and turned around and shaken about, which comes down to the tumultuousness of this industry. Rare […]
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