Category: On Writing
How the Idea of a Flower That Makes You Forget Grew Into a Novel
Plants are smart little creatures. We don’t generally think of them as creatures but in some ways, they are. They’re animate beings that know what they’re doing from day to day. They grow toward the light, they take in water, make their own food, communicate, and migrate. They’ve even learned how to adeptly procreate. Part […]
True Crime Book Dead in the Water – When Life Is More Terrifying Than Fiction
Matt Nixson of Mail on Sunday: “A real life page turner more intriguing than anything on Netflix. The gripping story of a woman who turned detective to track down her brother’s killer – nearly four decades after he was brutally murdered.” Ben Dirs, BBC News: “[A story] almost too mad to make up, too good […]
When Dark Became All The Light, I Knew
When Dark became all the light, I knew “Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further. The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, […]
On Rewriting Real-Life Tragedy: Part II
Write what you know. It’s every writer’s mantra, what we tell ourselves and each other. But what’s a suspense writer to do when she had an idyllic childhood? My father has never been arrested for murder. My husband has never disappeared without a trace. Up until recently, the parts of me that made it into […]
How I Found a Publisher for My Short Story Collection
By Yu-Han Chao, author of Sex & Taipei City Everybody says story collections don’t sell. “Editors don’t want story collections. Not unless you’re Stephen King.” Agents say, “I like your stories, but call me when you have a novel (translation: and not until you have a novel).” I grew up in Asia, where the short […]
Reincarnated Lovers And Writing
When I was a child, I used to dream of three things: to time-travel extensively, to wake up one day in medieval England transformed into a boy who served Richard Lionheart or to one day discover I could run so fast the ground blurred under my feet. The time-travel thing never happened. Neither did the […]
From Setbacks to Success: Finding My Story Again
The conception of my new novel “The Allspice Bath” was easy. When the idea met paper, the words flowed and the story grew, kicking at times and, at other points, remaining calm as slow waves. Like the protagonist Adele Azar I, too, grew up having one foot in my Canadian culture and another in my […]
Interview With Marissa Stapley
Marissa Stapley is the internationally bestselling author of three novels, which have been published around the world and translated into eight languages. We’re delighted to feature this interview with her on the publication day of THE LAST RESORT! THE LAST RESORT From bestselling author Marissa Stapley comes a gripping novel about marriage, loyalty, and the […]
Interview with BETH GARDINER, author of CHOKED: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution
— CHOKED: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution weaves together science, politics and the voices of those affected and those fighting for change to illustrate not only air pollution’s power and reach, but also the glimmers of progress and hope that point the way to a cleaner, healthier future. What did you want […]
Pursuing a Dream Across Two Continents
“Beyond the beautiful cover, Daniela Petrova’s debut novel is absolutely dreamy and suspenseful.”—O, The Oprah Magazine Daniela Petrova The urge to write—that burning desire to record thoughts, to make up stories and people —has always been with me, even though being an author was a forbidden dream I’d had to squash down for most of my […]
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