Category: On Writing
How Writing a Memoir Changed My Writing Practice By Hilary Plattner
When I was ready to start writing my memoir about my mother and her suicide, I set out all of her papers that I had saved over the years. I had a lot of letters she’d written, several sets she wrote to different people, including her mother and my future father. I also had a […]
From the Lost and Found of Memories By Brenda Haas
“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.” — Cicero I’m an introvert (masquerading as an extrovert) with a ready supply of quiet, often sarcastic, one-liners. I’m good for a chuckle or two, on most days. Painfully awkward on others. Sorting through the “lost and found” of equally-awkward memories—growing up an only child raised […]
The Secrets we Carry – And The Stories we Finally Tell by By Susan Simon
I loved being a principal — until I couldn’t stay For a long time, I carried my story quietly. On the surface, my career in education was progressing well. I was a teacher, then a principal, working across three schools in Queensland. I loved the work – the energy of a school, the sense of […]
New Collection Offers a Testament to the Power of Teens to Transform Pain into Creative Expression and Isolation into Connection and Community
Young people deal with a constant barrage of social media messages, relentless academic and peer pressures, and the threat of violence, including school shootings and ICE raids, on top of their own shifting hormones. No wonder the rates of anxiety and depression among teenagers continue to rise. Imagine the added burden for teens who have […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: H.Y. Hanna
Bestselling author H.Y. Hanna (over 500,000 copies sold) returns with her first psychological thriller, “The Taverna at the Edge of Night” (May 12, 2026), a sun-drenched, Greek island suspense novel about toxic female friendships and a girls’ trip gone dangerously wrong. Perfect for summer, this immersive destination thriller explores the dark side of “friendship breakups” […]
Karen Nelson: My Writing Journey
On my bookshelf next to my published novels sits my first book, The Popcorn Popper That Couldn’t Stop Popping, written and illustrated in crayon. I was nine. My main character, Patricia, was seven. As a child I devoured Winnie the Pooh, Louisa May Alcott, The Five Little Peppers, Aesop’s Fables, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and The […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Amy Lorowitz
Summer Husband Lori Kramer, a stay-at-home mom, would go to any length to give her two daughters the summer experience of their lives – even getting a job at their camp and tagging along with them. Aside from overseeing the chaos of four bunks filled with rambunctious kids and their counselors, Lori also manages to […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Jessica Guerrieri
BOTH CAN BE TRUE When a local mother goes missing, two estranged sisters are pulled back into each other’s lives and forced to confront old wounds, fractured trust, and the many ways a woman can disappear in plain sight. Frankie is the funny one, full of restless energy and sharp edges, the sister who got […]
Never Say “Never!” Our Passions as Writers May Take Us to Unexpected Places by Lynn Slaughter
My fiction writing journey began with writing for young adults. Members of my Sisters in Crime chapter routinely referred to me as the “young adult writer” of their group. I was fine with that. I love writing YA fiction. Adolescence is such an intense, dramatic, perfectly awful and wonderful period in our lives in which […]
On Writing The Butterfly In You by Sheri Mandell
The Butterfly in You began in a place I didn’t have language for at the time. From the outside, my life looked full…family, work, connection but internally, I felt a quiet, persistent loneliness that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t about being alone. It was about feeling disconnected from myself. I didn’t set out to write […]
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