Category: On Writing
From Iran to Freedom
Growing up in Tehran in the 90s, being a girl meant carrying a weight you didn’t fully understand. Life was shaped by rules that no one questioned, passed down from mothers to daughters without a second thought. Girls were taught that their worth was tied to marriage and motherhood, that their lives were meant to […]
A writer’s Mindful Adventure Creating Children’s Books that Delight and Calm
By Annamarie Fernyak Today’s children have discriminating palates. I am not talking about their palates for sophisticated food (“Caviar or pate, anyone?”), because Cane’s chicken is overwhelmingly popular where I come from, and kids still love their chicken fingers. I am referring to children’s discriminating palates for entertainment media. Children are used to fast streaming, […]
In A Testy Exchange, Book Character Interviews Her Author
A TINY PIECE OF BLUE For fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds and Lisa Wingate’s Shelterwood comes a heartwarming historical novel following a homeless young girl as she struggles to survive during the Great Depression. Rural Michigan, 1934. During the throes of the Great Depression, thirteen-year-old Silstice Trayson finds herself homeless, abandoned by her parents after a devastating […]
Threads of Sicily: The Roots Behind Becoming Mariella
by Janet Constantino When a writer friend asked me, “If you could write about anything you wanted, what would that be?” I immediately thought of Sicily, where half my family was born, where my father partially grew up, and where traditions rooted deeply in family and culture and family have shaped lives, especially the lives […]
Reading With Rochelle Weinstein: January
Hello Readers & Friends, That may have been the longest month ever. January gave us a lot to digest, and I want to make a special mention of those affected by the D.C. crash and the Palisades fires. Our hearts are with you and your loved ones. As we enter February, I’m super excited about […]
EXCERPT FROM The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared by Casey Mulligan Walsh
THE FULL CATASTROPHE: ALL I EVER WANTED, EVERYTHING I FEARED, Casey Mulligan Walsh Casey needs a family of her own: the joys and the sorrows, people who love her, and a place she belongs-what Zorba the Greek called “the full catastrophe”-and she’s determined to make it happen. Adrift in the world after losing her father […]
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by Marlene L. Daut : Excerpt
The essential biography of the controversial revolutionary and only king of Haiti. Henry Christophe (1767 – 1820) is one of the most richly complex figures in the history of the Americas, and was, in his time, popular and famous the world over. In The First and Last King of Haiti, a brilliant, award-winning Yale scholar unravels the still […]
Author Interviewing Characters: Author Maggie Anton Interviews Shifra
THE MIDWIVES’ ESCAPE After years of archaeological research and biblical studies, award-winning author Maggie Anton has created a historical novel filled with adventure, warfare, and romance, that is true to both Torah and to history. The Bible contains many extraordinary stories of a sometimes benevolent, sometimes vengeful deity, who guides the Israelites out of slavery, […]
Authors Interviewing Characters Gemma Tizzard, speaking to Grace O’Connell from Grace of the Empire State.
A daring young woman takes her brother’s place to risk her life in New York City. A breathtaking historical novel full of heart and hope, family and friendship, and the sacrifices we make for love… As the Great Depression bites, show dancer Grace’s Irish immigrant family can’t afford the rising rents, nor the medicine that her […]
The Inspiration for Unruly Human Hearts
How my advocacy for women’s rights and gender equality inspired my debut novel Unruly Human Hearts I first became interested in exploring the Beecher-Tilton scandal of the Reconstruction era while teaching a graduate class on US history at the University of Puerto Rico. At first, my students didn’t seem too interested in the 1875 trial […]
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