Category: On Writing
Let It Breathe: Unleashing the Power of Setting
By Kimberly Behre Kenna Can a house loom like a monster and still show up as the most tender thing in a story? In the opening scene of this middle-grade novel, thirteen-year-old Lola arrives at her uncle’s home: “…as soon as we turn into the driveway and I catch a glimpse of the stone roof […]
Writing Historical Fiction as an Homage to My Ancestors By Peggy Joque Williams
When asked about my two books, Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles (2024) and Braving the Dawn: A Novel of New France (January 2026), I take delight in saying they are an homage to my French-Canadian ancestors. In a 2024 piece I wrote for Women Writers, Women’s Books, “From Super Collaborator to Solo Historical […]
Growth through Community: Women’s Fiction Writers Association
We’ve all discovered that learning how to write is critical but community, that’s something that most of us don’t realize until later. Then, we wonder how we ever survived without it. When we find an organization that offers craft development and community, we find the roadmap to our true potential. That search isn’t always a […]
Being Agnostic in the South
By Victoria Dillon For fans of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Farm,” and “Red Clocks,” Victoria Dillon’s provocative new novel “Ava” (She Writes Press, March 3, 2026) asks: What if the only way to reclaim reproductive freedom was to rewrite the very nature of birth itself? Written by a pediatrician and former research scientist who studied avian […]
Why Keep Writing? Do I Want To?
Lately, the question “Do I want to keep writing?” has arisen. By Janet Constantino “What are you writing now?” Or “What will you write next?” Questions I’m asked frequently, since the publication of my novel, Becoming Mariella. What invariably comes up for me is, do I want to keep writing? Aside from short pieces, like this […]
Author Interviewing Characters: Jean Burgess
NAVIGATING HER NEXT CHAPTER: A RETRO NOVEL Jean Burgess’ second Retro Women’s fiction, Navigating Her Next Chapter (Apprentice House Press, 2026), is set primarily in New York City in the early 1980s. It tells the story of Margie Stevens, a twenty-something from a tiny town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, who moves to the big city […]
The Making of the Musical Memoir, Fly, My Darling By Lisa K. Richter
With rhythmic, imaginative prose, Fly, My Darling (April 21, 2026, She Writes Press) explores the resilience of love, the weight of loss, the undeniable pull toward freedom, and the transformation that occurs when a woman finally asks, What do I really want? Based on Lisa Richter’s years together with musician and visionary composer Lynda Roth, […]
Plotting a Novel by Reanimating the Objective Correlative (And Imagining a Near-Future Plagued by Organ Traffickers) by Lee Upton
Several years ago I came across a newspaper article about tourists who died while abroad. When their bodies were returned to their home country a terrible discovery was made: their internal organs had been removed. The memory of that article festered as a nightmare. The statistics I’ve seen replicated most often come from the World […]
On Writing FRIENDSHIP SKILLS FOR NEURODIVERGENT ADULTS by Caroline Maguire
When I sat down to write Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults, I was not starting from a blank page. I was starting from decades of listening, brainstorming, and searching. Searching for answers that my clients share routinely after a tough conversation with a friend, or a confusing conversation with a coworker or a shameful moment […]
13-old Author Maya Ahmed on Australia’s Social Media Ban
by Maya Ahmed As a 13-year-old author, the social media ban frustrates me I am 13 years old, and I recently flew to Melbourne to be interviewed on live TV about my novel, Operation R.A.D. I was very nervous, but it was such a cool experience. I also had a book launch at my school […]
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