Category: On Writing
A Roll Of The Dice
A Roll of the Dice is about one woman’s wish to become a mother while knowing that she carries a gene that could seriously affect her unborn babies, particularly if they are boys. The memoir is a thrilling page-turner as well as a story of a haunting journey towards motherhood. Mona describes in riveting detail […]
Kill Your Darlings For Beginners
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft I read this quote years ago and it stuck with me, mostly because it seemed odd. It seemed wrong. Until I started editing my first book and […]
Filling in the Gaps
Filling in the Gaps by Barbara Hoffbeck Scoblic As I worked on my memoir, Lost Without the River, I often realized that I needed details about events that occurred before my memory had kicked in. I was grateful my five remaining siblings were willing and able to fill in my blank spots. Remarkable. I’m the youngest, […]
The Waiting Game and Other Untold Stories
For years, I was an advertising copywriter with a secret desire to write a book. You’re thinking, how hard could that be, writing is writing, right? If only. Penning a novel not only seemed like a daunting task, I believed only highly gifted writers could legitimately do it and be taken seriously. One needed permission […]
Fishing And Writing At The Creek
Caleb is in the creek, his back toward me. Fly fishing. The creek is swollen, redolent with moss and muck. The sleeves on his flannel shirt are rolled up, the better to pitch the leader and tippet downstream, which he does with impressive concentration at first. He stretches back his shoulder and almost slips—the creek […]
Why My Novels are Filled with My Food Obsession and How Writing ‘Waisted’ Changed My Life
By Randy Susan Meyers I grew up in a family where food was considered the comforting evil or evil comfort—but never just comfort. Never just food. My mother—for whom dress size was the holy grail—watched every bite I took. When in a restaurant, first she’d not order what she wanted and then she’d steal bites from […]
Telling Women’s Truths: Privilege and Peril
By Kate Kaufmann By gathering the stories I needed to hear, I found the book I was meant to write. When you don’t have kids, life unfolds differently than it does for parents. There are no blueprints, only a plethora of possibilities. Always a searcher, I wanted to know how other women like me went […]
Why Crime?
I always knew I wanted to be a writer but it never seemed like an actual career choice. I left school without many qualifications and found myself homeless for a year in my late teens. It was a tough time but one thing that I’ve always done, and which I continued to do, even on […]
Interview With Rachel Howard, Author of The Risk Of Us
What makes a family? What makes a family risky? In Rachel Howard’s fearless and deeply empathetic novel THE RISK OF US (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; April 2019), she tackles not only what creates kinship – but what can destroy it. Told through the lens of a childless forty-something couple who become foster parents of a young […]
Dresses—Reinvented
When I was the Chief Brand Officer of ELLE Décor and Metropolitan Home, there was a showroom-event-a-minute and a trade show every month. It was a role that demanded that I look the part—stylish, sophisticated, and decked out in designer clothes. The first two I had reasonably down, but any funds for a high-end brand wardrobe were limited. […]
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