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.
The Stories In The Air
The Stories in the Air Where do stories come from? How do they appear? Anything you read about writing will tell you that inspiration is a very small part of the writing process and that the most important part-the part that gets things done, is the part where you sit down at your computer or […]
On Killing Your Darlings: Fighting the Hoarding Instinct
On Killing Your Darlings: Fighting the Hoarding Instinct I have a hard time letting go. My house is full of t-shirts I haven’t worn since high school, notes on epistemology and pre-Socratics from college, old essays on securities fraud. Stacks and stacks of popsicle stick creations, half-colored Thomas the Tank Engine print-outs, construction paper with […]
Strong Abdominals Equals Confidence in Writing
As a fitness professional for over forty years, I have been telling clients to hold in their abdominals. “Pull your belly in,” I’d say. “But you should still be able to breathe and talk, even sing.” Then I’d explain that having a strong core: belly, buttocks, and thighs, will not only allow you to hold […]
How Writing ROAR Saved My Life
“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” Carl Jung I chose happy… Writing “Roar” saved my life, figuratively, if not literally. I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, spousal attempted murder, physical abuse, and lifelong emotional abuse. I had survived traumatic brain injuries and two suicide attempts. […]
Fire and Ice: An Ode to Setting
Fire and Ice: An Ode to Setting by Meghan Holloway I fell in love the first time. I was in my late teens, and I had never before experienced that bitterness of the wind, those depths of snow, or that sheer wildness of a landscape. Yellowstone in the unrelenting grips of winter captured my heart […]
Jobs In Books
I wanted to move to New York from the time I first learned what New York was. I grew up on a farm and dreamed about moving to the city the way some kids dream about becoming marine biologists. Reading books like E.L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and watching […]
Being a Parent Helped Me Become a Better Writer
Being a parent and a writer often seem mutually exclusive. If you can barely find time to brush your teeth or empty the dishwasher while caring for tiny (or teenaged) humans, how can you carve out the weeks, months, or years required to craft an essay or a ninety-thousand word novel? Personally, I’m never more […]
Fiction that Makes You Think: Bringing Difficult Subjects into the Light
By Judith F. Brenner I’ve heard people say they don’t watch the news, or even skim a newspaper, because starting off your day with depressing topics is not appealing. Headline writers want to grab a reader with a fear factor. But what about fiction? I am one of many authors who has tackled difficult, uncomfortable […]
How A Ghost Inspired My Writing
Sharing a 19th century farmhouse with an angry and loud ghost was the motivation behind writing Long Shadows. I hoped researching the house’s history would provide clues to reasons for its presence and even exorcise it from my life. Instead, what I discovered became a book narrated by a ghost. The property in the Shenandoah […]
Ukraine: A Legacy of Resilience
by Erin Litteken One of my favorite things to do as a child was listen to my great-grandmother’s stories about Ukraine I’d spend hours staring at the pictures on her wall–images of the places and people she and my great-grandfather left behind when they fled Nazi and Soviet oppression with their three young children during […]
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