Category: On Writing
Humans From Clay, and Other Authorial Pursuits
“Aruru washed her hands, she pinched off some clay, and threw it into the wilderness. In the wilderness she created the valiant Enkidu” — The Epic of Gilgamesh, stela 1 While writing The Original Glitch, I became incredibly preoccupied with the human obsession with creation. That is, the creation of life in the image of […]
Interview with Julie Scolnik
“Not every true story is like a good novel, but this one is. Not every memoir of first love has a satisfying ending, but this one does. The confluence of first love with becoming an artist makes this memoir special.” — John Irving PARIS, 1976: Twenty-year-old American student Julie Scolnik had just arrived in the […]
How My Strategic Communications Background Helped Me Finish my debut, AFTER PERFECT By Maan Gabriel
How My Strategic Communications Background Helped Me Finish my debut, AFTER PERFECT. By Maan Gabriel Story telling is in my blood. My mom swears she successfully taught me to read and tell my fairytales in front of an audience at three years old and that it was my favorite thing in the world. I didn’t […]
A “True” Story: What Inspired My Famous Brain
“Did you really know this person?” I think many fiction writers are asked that question in one form or another when they send a piece out into the world. It’s a great compliment. It means that the reader is so invested in your main character that she wants that character to have had an actual […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Tracy Shawn
Character Interview with Paloma Leary from Novel Floating Underwater by Tracy Shawn About FLOATING UNDERWATER Paloma Leary is devastated when her latest vision predicting a third miscarriage comes true. She falls into a mystifying world of increasingly bizarre phenomena, including an otherworldly connection with her mysterious neighbor, out-of-body experiences, and phantom visits from her dead […]
Why I Don’t Have a Period (and no, this is not About Menopause)
When I tell people I’m a historical novelist, or I write historical fiction, with few exceptions they say, “Oh? What’s your period?” The assumption, I think, is that in order to write with any authority, an author has to specialize in a certain era—or at the very least, a certain place. In fact, some historical […]
Developing a Writing Life By Evelyn Kohl LaTorre
My parents had five children in rapid succession within the space of nine years. Living in a house with so many youngsters meant unending chores and responsibility for all of us, but especially for me, the eldest. My mother expected me to help cook and clean—and adhere to the many rules of the Catholic church […]
The Short Story and Psychotherapy: A Compatible Duo
By Linda Feyder I have always been attracted to the short story, the novel’s strange little sibling. I find stories gripping, transcendent, and revealing in a way that often strikes me by surprise. Stories are like unexpected moments when you catch something fleeting that pierces your heart. As short story writer Lorrie Moore once said, […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Paulette Stout
Love, Only Better centers on the intimate quest of my main character, twenty-eight-year-old Rebecca Sloane. When her ex storms out, his stinging bedroom insults linger. She begins the empowering task of connecting with her sexual self, but her magnetic connection with Kyle, a gorgeous new neighbor across the hall, complicates matters. Rebecca struggles to juggle […]
Selective Writer’s Block: When Some Things Are Better Left Unwritten
Darkness is oppressive. Silence echoes what I do not want to hear. Night is a curse that keeps on coming back. Night is the green screen onto which everything is projected, what I do not want to see nor feel, my anxieties, my fears and pains. The sunrise ushers the relief of light, the glow […]
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