Category: On Writing
The Story Behind THE HAPPINESS PATHWAY by Charu Moorjani
People kept telling me how beautiful I looked on my wedding day. I couldn’t feel any of it. My wedding day should have been the happiest day of my life. Everyone kept telling me it was. The venue was spectacular, an enormous outdoor farmhouse, the stage dressed like a movie set with performers costumed as […]
How I Became a Writer in Japan By Suzanne Kamata
I have wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl in Michigan. As a kid, I wrote stories on demand for my classmates, and produced and distributed what we would now call a zine to the people in my neighborhood. Later, I wrote features on topics as diverse as shoplifting and the […]
Joy Conditioning: How Writing About My Brother Brought Him Back By Larkin McPhee
The story of my brother, Charles McPhee, was a film waiting to happen. The good-looking, charismatic host of the nationally syndicated radio program The Dream Doctor Show slurs his words on the radio. Listeners call in to ask if he is drunk. At age forty-four, Charles’s life is changed forever, along with his family, when […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Laura Lekkos
All the Little Ways In the vein of Pineapple Street and Such a Fun Age, a smart, heartfelt debut novel about two expecting mothers navigating motherhood, family life, and female friendship, whose bond is threatened by a shocking revelation. Victoria and Liz barely breathe the same air, but they collide headfirst when they meet in a group for expectant […]
The Story Behind The Making of a Witch
By Judy Molland “The last person to be sentenced to death for witchcraft in England was Alice Molland at Exeter in 1685.” I read this in Keith Thomas’s tome Religion and the Decline of Magic, when I was 25, and gasped. I had never before seen my last name Molland in a published text. Thrilled, […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Lisa K. Winkler Interviews Anne Brown
In Gershwin’s Bess, Anne Brown, a soprano who aspires to sing opera, leaves her childhood behind in Baltimore in 1928 to enroll at prestigious Juilliard in New York City, realizing that being black will keep her from singing on traditional opera stages. When she hears that the famous composer George Gershwin is creating an opera […]
Inspiration Behind “Thirty Days to Home”
By Cathryn Rakich Street dogs are unheard of where I live in suburban Sacramento, a sprawling Northern California community of 1.5 million people. Stroll along a neighborhood boulevard and you won’t see meandering mutts without owners tethered to the other end of a leash. A drive down the highway reveals no uncorralled canines trotting from […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Kristine Rudolph
The Twin Stars and the Soccer Superstar Perfect for fans of Laurie Morrison and Jenn Bishop, this lively middle-grade mystery follows a vibrant group of teens and tweens navigating grief, authenticity, and—above all—soccer, while taking an enjoyable romp through the Texas Hill Country. Every year, spring in Texas means two very different things to sixth […]
A Story That Waited 70 Years to Be Written
By Marcella Luiso Flanagan and Phyllis Clare Orlowski Marcella Luiso Flanagan is 91 years old. For most of her life, she carried a story she knew mattered, but didn’t yet feel ready to tell. Her niece, Phyllis Clare Orlowski, grew up knowing there was something quietly significant about her aunt’s past—especially the months Marcella spent […]
An Author List with a Diverse Twist by Jessica Mudditt
For the past two and a half years, I’ve been running an experiment. I’ve said yes to publishing almost every manuscript that has landed on my desk. Many in the traditional publishing industry would turn their noses up at this. As a publisher, shouldn’t I be wading through the volumes of submissions sent by hopeful […]
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