Category: On Writing
How I Wrote an Historical Novel Set in China
It seems that China has always beckoned to me. The process involved in writing my novel, The Secret Language of Women, Book #1 of the Wayfarer Trilogy, began way before I ever thought of becoming a writer. I was a child growing up in Brooklyn and became entranced by the Chinese family who owned the […]
My Mother’s Blessing To Be A Writer
It’s been eleven years since my mother passed away, eleven years since I last heard her voice. She was sixty-three years old, unquestionably too young. After she died, I began paying attention to the experiences friends had with similar losses. Some of them spoke of messages they believed their loved ones had sent – birds […]
Why I Wrote About The Dark Side Of Fashion
The fashion industry, as seen from the outside, has a bad image and reputation. It’s all shine, puffery and surface. Is fashion only about beautiful women in stunning clothes? I wrote Wildchilds because I wanted to delve deeply into that other side, the one which, as a player for four decades, knew so well. I […]
Growing Up in a Golf Cart
My book was born on a golf course. Which may sound strange since the book has nothing to do with golf or sports of any kind. It makes more sense when you consider the hours I’ve logged with my family looping around golf courses from Miami Beach to Southern California. For all practical purposes, I […]
My Writing Journey: Sheila Patel
‘I just write…. I write it as I see it and if it makes me laugh, I write it down’ When I was growing up, I loved watching movies, the funnier the better. Jerry Lewis, the Marx Brothers and of course, Laurel and Hardy. I grew up in a huge Punjabi family in the textile […]
The Pale Blue English Racer
I was the only kid in the sixth grade with a fat-tire Schwinn. No one had those anymore. All my friends were riding English racers with hand brakes and gears. I asked for a new bike, but my father said they were too expensive. Then one Christmas morning, I woke up to find a skinny-tire, […]
How The Weather Influences My Writing
The idea for a novel does not usually arrive—for me at least—in a sudden “aha” moment. It is a process that takes place over time. Some of my ideas have lived in me for years like spores I scarcely knew were present until they found the fertile soil in which to sprout. Weather Woman was […]
From Idea to Full Length Novel
How it all began When I’m not writing crime novels I write a monthly column for the UK magazine, Writers’ Forum and have done so for the last eleven years. Called “Ideas Store”, I get to ask other writers the question every writer is said to dread: “Where did you get that idea from?” It’s […]
You Are Not Alone
Many people, I think, imagine writers alone in a room in front of a computer screen furiously typing their stories. While this is absolutely true for me, I also email all day with a few close author friends until we need a new thread because so many messages are flying back and forth. We talk […]
Q and A with BARBARA TAYLOR BRADFORD
Barbara Taylor Bradford, OBE is one of the world’s best loved storytellers. Her 1979 debut novel, A Woman of Substance, ranks as one of the top-ten bestselling books of all-time, with more than 30 million copies in print. To date, she has written 35 novels — all bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. Master Of His […]
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