Category: On Writing
Letting Creativity Run Riot—How My Mum Influenced My Latest Novel
When we were kids, my mum refused to buy us coloring books. Instead, she spoiled us with every colored pencil under the rainbow along with roll upon roll of blank paper to write and draw and follow wherever our imaginations took us. But that was my mum, that was the artist in her, coloring outside […]
On Writing Fiction About Climate Change
On this Earth Day morning I heard an interview with a woman who insisted that we had to go into war-time–emergency–measures mode to enable governments to force industry and citizens to change their ways. The examples she gave were of victory gardens in the front and back yards of households and the prohibition of the […]
How a Trip to Ballinasloe Led to Me Writing My First Novel
It was during my first trip to Ireland that I learned about the existence of “industrial schools.” A gentleman at a dinner I was attending talked about a book he had just read, “Fear of the Collar” by Patrick Toucher. The book was an account of the author’s experience in the Artaine Industrial School, which […]
The Importance Of History
Have you ever wondered why it is that when we hear that old almost forgotten song, we can remember every single word? Thirty plus years later, the song is as fresh in our minds as when we first heard it. Whether we can hold a tune or not, we sing happily along with it and […]
Interview with Sigrid Nunez
Journalist Jenna Orkin interviews Nunez about the unusual level of intimacy she achieves in her work as well as the themes of the novel which range from suicide to writing teachers and students. In your latest novel, The Friend, you’ve said that you were striving for the intimate tone of a letter. You certainly achieved […]
Publishing The Story I Was Told Not To Tell
I’m about to publish the story I was told not to tell. This is not the story people wanted me to write, the white washed love story, the cliché—but the true story I was meant to write. This is the story no book publisher would touch. A bigwig literary agent told me to put this […]
Mining the Family Store
What could a US soldier on leave in Paris after VE day, a little boy carrying a live chicken inside his synagogue, and a man dressed as a woman and smuggled out of Russia to avoid the Czar’s army have in common? Or a picture of Israeli and Egyptian soldiers in Eilat, circa 1949, after […]
Writing ELLIE AND THE HARPMAKER
It must be possible, I thought. One dream had already come true. Not without a good deal of stress and struggle, and it had taken years longer than I’d imagined, but still: I was a harpist! I’d managed to get myself a harp and learn how to play it. It was lovely and rewarding and […]
Using “real news” To Inform My Historical Mysteries
How fast can a horse travel anyway? Why was “blood-letting” used to treat epilepsy? What was the impact of the Prohibition on real people? When I started my PhD in history, I had no idea that I would one day use the skills I acquired as a researcher to answer questions like these while writing […]
Authors Interviewing Their Characters: Renee Rosen
Millions of single girls would become her disciples. She inspired the creation of Carrie Bradshaw, Hannah Horvath, and Peggy Olson. Her name was Helen Gurley Brown. Told through the eyes of Helen Gurley Brown’s fictional assistant, Renee Rosen’s PARK AVENUE SUMMER (Berkley Trade Paperback Original; April 30, 2019) takes readers through the tumultuous beginning of […]
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