Category: On Writing
Writing the Hard Stuff While it’s Happening
(Or why I wrote about how hard it was to have my dad living in my dining room while he was still there.) For as long as I can remember, writing has been a way to process the experiences in my life. It’s also an essential philosophy for all my writing classes; writing is simply […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Carolyn Jack
Character interview by Carolyn Jack THE CHANGING OF KEYS With his father dead, a gifted, fourteen-year-old pianist finds himself sent away from his Caribbean home against his will, to study classical music in the U.S. with a family friend he’ s never met. His first angry, frightened step away from the controlling mother he’ s […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Evette Davis
THE OTHERS SUMMARY: Olivia Shepherd is a political consultant with a secret: She possesses empathic abilities, the power to sense the emotions of those around her. Keen to keep her supernatural gifts hidden, Olivia’s world is upended when Elsa, an ancient time-walker, appears in her kitchen, unveiling a destiny she never knew she had. As […]
On Writing Cave of Secrets
By Lynne Golodner I went to the Highlands of Scotland in the summer of 2022 because I had a romantic notion about living in another country for a length of time so that I grew to know its roads and felt comfortable shopping in its groceries. But I also went to write. I called it […]
On Writing WHITE by Aviva Rubin
My debut novel WHITE has been a long time coming. I’ve been working on it for well over a decade. The story bush-wacked its way across the country, creating then killing off characters, plot lines, scenes and locations. I’m so grateful I’ll only write a first novel once. All that executing and traipsing about is […]
WHEN A QUAINT GEORGIA TOWN REFUSED TO BURY ITS GHOSTS, I DID TOO
By Jan Heidrich-Rice The ghosts came to town in 2020. October, to be exact. That’s when I contemplated taking a stab at my first National Novel Writers Month (NANOWRIMO), the challenge to draft a 50,000-word book in the month of November. The experience resulted in the first whispers of SECRETS OF THE BLUE MOON. My […]
The Whisper Sister by Jennifer S. Brown: Excerpt
The author of Modern Girls delivers an atmospheric coming-of-age story set in Prohibition-era New York, tracing one immigrant family’s fortunes and a young girl’s journey from the schoolyard to the speakeasy. The streets of New York in 1920 are most certainly not paved with gold, as Minnie Soffer learns when she arrives at Ellis Island. Her father, […]
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 […]
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