Category: On Writing
To Plan or Not to Plan?
By Julie Hartley A dream came true for me in November 2024 when, after several months of editorial meetings and the submission of three detailed synopses, I received a two-book deal from Bookouture UK. Beyond excited, I clicked on the contract, scanned the deadlines specified for delivery of the first book, and my jaw dropped […]
The Inspiration for my Book: A Song, Chekhov’s Gun, and Heroes
By I.M. Aiken The wisdom at our dining table involved “write what you know.” What does a kid know? My answer was: join the volunteer fire department, earn your EMT, work in the inner city on urban ambulances, sail the oceans on long voyages, work as a cook, teach skiing professionally, move to Alaska, spend […]
The Paris Understudy by Aurelie Thiele, Excerpt
The Paris Understudy This powerful debut novel brings to life the hard choices Parisians made–or failed to make–under Nazi occupation, in the tradition of Pam Jenoff and Fiona Davis. 1938. Paris Opera legend Madeleine Moreau must keep newcomer Yvonne Chevallier, whose talent she fears, off the stage. As the long-standing star of the opera, she is […]
Metamorphosis: How a Novel Became a Thriller Series
By Peggy Webb I’ve been writing in multiple genres for forty years, and the best writing advice I ever heard is there are no rules. Does that mean I get to throw structure, plot, pacing and character development to the wind? Absolutely not! Can I forget about outlines? Yes…and no. New writers need outlines to […]
Maryam Diener: On Writing
At school in Iran, I was drawn to the works of the poet Forough Farrokhzad. Modernist and revelatory, her poetry was a turning point in the Iranian literary world. She used the written word to explore personal emotions in a world where it was taboo for women to write about their inner life. For hundreds […]
What Titles Tell Us
When I started writing my memoir almost ten years ago, I thought I was writing a story about our family breeding our Portuguese Water Dog, Spray, as our last family adventure before my older daughter, Maggie, left for college. I had kept a blog about the dog and puppies, at my husband’s suggestion, and about […]
Mining the Past to Understand the Present
By Margaret Ann Spence The mid-century, before the baby-boomers became teenagers and horrified their parents, was, it is said, a time of stifling conformity. Strange. That is not how I remember this time at all. So, I wrote a memoir to set the record straight. In writing Cold War in a Hot Kitchen: a memoir […]
How I Develop My Characters
By nature, I am a people person, so, developing characters is where I begin when planning a story. Once the characters are created, the plot is built around them, not the reverse. So, how do I develop my characters? All my characters are based on people I have encountered in my career as a ladies’ […]
August: Reading With Rochelle Weinstein
Hello Readers & Friends, North Carolina is a memory, and we’re back in Miami where the days alternate between steamy sun and lots of afternoon showers. But who minds the rain when you have a great book on hand? Here’s what I read in August…all that plus edits for We Are Made of Stars! Here’s […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Cynthia Reeves
Cynthia Reeves’s novel The Last Whaler is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to rendezvous […]
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