Category: On Writing
When Facts Become Fiction: From Journalist in Rwanda to Novelist
Novels usually draw, to some degree, on personal experiences and historical research, and memoirs have come a long way since the scandal of James Frey’s personal revelations being more fiction than fact. The blurring of lines between the real world and the imagined has been an interesting process for me during the eleven years I […]
The Story of Infidelity: The Movie
When Infidelity: a Memoir was first published in 2000, it was greeted with a starred review from PW, a paperback auction, sales in the UK and Australia, and a movie sale. As time went on, it went out of print. Dzanc Books decided to reprint it and a trade paperback will be on the shelves […]
I Wish I Wasn’t Brave
I’m sitting having coffee with a friend when I receive a phone call to tell me that I’ve won an award at the Amazing Women Awards for No 1 Magazine in Scotland. I was shocked, as I had no idea at all about being nominated by my eldest daughter and was very touched to have […]
When Fiction is Perceived as Fact
My latest novel, Rituals of the Dead, came to be because I wanted to write a mystery about an Asmat bis pole. Considering the Asmat live in the Indonesian province of Papua, the setting for my historical mystery was easily decided. The premise was simple: my protagonist – an art history student in present-day Amsterdam […]
QUIETUS A Spirit of Thought
On a Boston winter’s day long past, I began my journey into the tactile world of Quietus. Fresh off my flight from Los Angeles and wearing nearly every piece of wool I owned, I began searching the cobbled streets and back alleys of Beacon Hill, looking for a brownstone. I was there to map and […]
BEING AGENTED IRL – Part Two
A Twenty-Five-Question Interview Published as a Five Part Series. Read Part One HERE | Hosted by MM Finck | | Anonymously Answered By Agented Authors* with Varying Publishing Career Durations and Successes from Debut to Bestselling and Represented by Multiple Literary Agencies of Varying Sizes | QUESTION SIX Did your first agented manuscript sell? If […]
The Artistic Coma and The Arrogant Intellect
I’m a writer and a reader. I love all kinds of books. But I’m instinctively repelled by arm-achingly thick, academic-looking tomes that claim to be about the craft of writing. Those ones that include pie charts and Venn diagrams. I prefer to read words about words, am an admirer of the slender and concise, and […]
Writing Life With Brain Injury: After The Memoir
My first reader review of But My Brain Had Other Ideas: A Memoir of Recovery from Brain Injury appeared within a week of the book’s release. It was from the father of a brain injury survivor. He wrote, “. . .her journey. . .gave me insight, from an adult perspective, . . .[and] reference points […]
A Dream of Writing
Since releasing my debut novel, I have had quite a few interviews, and inevitably they ask the same question, “When did you know you wanted to become a writer?” If I answered with the statement, I’ve had this dream all my life; I’d be lying. The truth is, there was a story brewing in my […]
Cover Story
When my publisher asked if I had any ideas in mind for the cover of my new book, I’m not sure they were prepared for the Pinterest board I’d been adding to steadily for over a year! I had eleventy-million ideas and couldn’t begin to think how they could all be distilled down to one […]
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