Category: On Writing
Story Behind The Story
In the middle of a steamy August 2012 afternoon, I was sitting inside a chain restaurant located in a suburban mall some 40 miles west of Boston. Across from me sat the man who would be the main character in the book I was just starting to research. I needed to get to know the […]
Q&A with Isabelle Duval, author of fictionalized memoir, Inhaled
June 1st is World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day. With social distancing and confinement guidelines now imposing a new way of living, Inhaled warns of the heightened risk victims of abuse will face, away from their resources and support network. Montreal author Isabelle Duval shares her dark story of overcoming an abusive and dangerous relationship with a narcissist/sociopath in […]
Authors Interviewing Their Characters: Jamie Beck
Wall Street Journal bestselling author Jamie Beck interviews Amanda Turner Foster and Erin Turner, the oil-and-water sisters in IF YOU MUST KNOW, an emotional novel about how secrets and differences can break—or bind—a family. Jamie: Thanks for agreeing to speak with me today. Let’s begin with telling me why you brought me to Sugar Momma’s? […]
A chosen exile, By Jennifer Steil
It feels appropriate to suddenly find myself and my 10-year-old daughter exiled from our home in Uzbekistan while launching a novel about exile—although our situation is far more fortunate than that of my characters. They flee the Nazis in Vienna to find refuge in Bolivia, the only country that will let them in, and have […]
Coffee Run Inspiration
Donna Koros Stramella Readers often ask me where the inspiration for my novel, Coffee Killed My Mother originated. Curiously, the title came first and was ultimately the inspiration for the book. On one of my frequent coffee runs a number of years ago, I was headed to a drive-thru for a cup and a car […]
Telling The Story Without Knowing The Answers
On New Year’s Eve, a year after my mother died, my father said, “I want you to tell her story.” In any family this would be an awkward moment, but in ours it was an invitation to dance in a field filled with buried landmines waiting for the foolhardy to set off an explosion. “Not […]
Where Do Ideas Come From? Writing The Silk House
It’s a question that writers are often asked, and before I began writing novels I found it hard to imagine where I might find the inspiration for a short story, let alone something to sustain an entire novel. However, once I began to think in a certain way, actively paying attention and looking out for […]
Footnotes in History
Footnotes in History We traveled through the Bear River Valley in the forenoon . . . (it) is tolerably fertile and looks as if it might be well adapted to raising wheat. During the afternoon our road over the mountains was quite slippery in consequence of light showers which fell at intervals during the day. […]
I’ll Rise
In 1970, Joni Mitchell lamented in “Big Yellow Taxi,” “No, no, no/Don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…” The song served as a red flag; in an instant, what we hold dear could assume the quality of mist and dissipate. The lyrics are apropos to the pandemic […]
What’s in Your Drawer? By Ann Lewinson
What’s in Your Drawer? By Ann Lewinson You’ve probably spent at least some of the past six weeks cleaning out closets and drawers and making room in your kitchen cabinets for all those canned beans. And after throwing out some ancient William Sonoma mulling spices and washing equally ancient bandanas on hot, perhaps you came […]
Recent Comments