Author Archive: Women Writers Women Books
Dutch by birth and serial emigrant, Barbara currently lives with her husband and daughter in a tiny village in Galicia, Spain, as basic and simple as can be. W Barbara's website.
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 […]
Lessons I Learned in a Comedy Club
One Wednesday evening in 2008, I sat at a table in the back of Go Bananas Comedy club in Cincinnati, Ohio. I took notes as people in the room made suggestions to a young guy in a backwards hat on how to make his joke work better. “What if instead of saying you chugged a […]
Echoes of the Heart: Finding Voice in the Void
By Gwen Suesse (Notes from Planet Widow: Finding My Way After Loss) Memoir: I enjoy reading a good one, but write one? Moi? The very thought is unsettling at best and, in the dark of night, downright terrifying. Why would anyone want to read my story? And yet, that’s what my latest book, Planet Widow: […]
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 […]
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’ […]
Prologues & Epilogues, Oh My!
by Abigail Owen I have heard over the years from various readers that they skip prologues or epilogues. Skip them? How? Why? Maybe that reader had a bad experience? Or just thinks that a prologue or epilogue is information they don’t need? Do prologues and/or epilogues fit with or enhance every single story? Or course […]
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