Category: On Writing
Where I Find My Inspiration: Thelma Adams
I find a lot of my inspiration for writing novels in the past. For my current book, out November 6th, Bittersweet Brooklyn: A Novel , part of the inspiration came from a crime that occurred in October 1935. And that crime, the murder of “Pretty Amberg,” the aftermath pictured in the photograph above, somehow involved my […]
Writing and Cultural Appropriation
First things first; I wrote a book based on the life of Sojourner Truth. I’m a white writer. Sojourner was black. It was my first novel and it was published fifteen years ago, back when the discussion of cultural appropriation was simmering, not on a full tilt boil like it is today. I spent five […]
A Year of Firsts – Highs, Lows & Coincidences
2018 has been a year of firsts, pleasant highs, an extreme low, and a handful of coincidences. It is the year I self-published my novel, Beneath the Lion’s Wings; went on an East Coast USA book tour; participated in a taped segment of NBC’s The Today Show; filmed a travel show to be aired on […]
The Power of Never Giving Up
Time flies. We all know it. Whether you’re having fun or not. Whether the years are filled with sublime happiness or utter sadness, or, like most of us, with a combination of both. It simply goes, and sometimes, our dreams go with it. We turn around and ten or twenty years have whipped by and […]
AUTHORS INTERVIEWING THEIR CHARACTERS: Eliza Graham author of The Lines We Leave Behind
AUTHORS INTERVIEWING THEIR CHARACTERS: Eliza Graham author of The Lines We Leave Behind Interview with Maud Knight on board a Halifax bomber heading for Yugoslavia, March 1944. Why are you shivering, Maud? I’m flying out to carry out an operation with the Partisans. It’s cold in this Halifax — it’s a military aircraft with […]
The Idea of North: Writing and Recovery By Tanya Marquardt
I wrote the first draft of my book Stray: Memoir of a Runaway drunk. Like blind, staggering drunk. In 2010 that’s what I did best. I had gotten into a prestigious MFA Program, moved from Canada to New York after my mother co-signed a loan from the bank, and had two years to spend my […]
Writing and Other Jobs
Towards the end of 2014, I found myself in the position I had long dreamed of: I was able to give up my day job and dedicate myself to writing. It had been a whirlwind few months since winning the Bath Novel Award in June, meeting my wonderful agent Juliet Mushens and signing a two-book […]
Dads And Their Daughters
When a gunman opened fire on tourists sunbathing on the beach in Tunisia on 26th June 2015, one girl fled with her boyfriend into their hotel reception – and then she called her dad back in the UK to ask him what she should do. It was a poignant detail of that awful tragedy that […]
Writing Became The New Love Of My Life
Life has a way of bringing you to places you would never have expected or planned for. It could be a new home, in a different state or country, a new friend, experience or a new career. I had two careers when I started writing, and didn’t even dream at that time that I would […]
The Power of Journaling
Why should you take time from your busy day to journal? Because stories rise up out of journaling, and even if they don’t, your story matters. No one can tell your story but you. Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62 started my journaling about the new relationship I found, on Craigslist of […]
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