Category: On Writing
Writing For Young Adults – What Preparing A Masterclass Has Taught Me
When the Irish Arts Center in New York asked me to hold a masterclass on writing young adult fiction, I thought: sure, no problem. I regularly run story workshops in schools. They’re interactive, fun and hugely educational. For me, too. Because kids are kids. And teenagers are teenagers. They give so much of themselves. There […]
Let’s Talk About Rape
If anybody told me a few years ago that one day I would be sharing my story, giving TV and radio interviews and writing a book I would never have believed it. But on 22nd September 2014, I decided to share my story publicly and it was posted on the website of The Forgiveness Project […]
The Tape on the Cutting Room Floor
I never intended to write a memoir. I didn’t even like memoirs—novels have been my drug of choice since I was a kid, and my trade, as well, as a professor of literature. I was a bit of a snob about memoirs, to tell the truth. I’d read reviews and think, oh no, not another […]
Writing Killer Suspense
The thrill that mystery fans crave derives from a writer’s ability to create tension, on the page and in a reader’s mind. Knowing how to apply tension in any genre can be useful. With a mystery, it’s an essential ingredient in keeping readers hooked from the first page to the last. Tension can arise from […]
Where Do You Write?
Being an estate agent for decades before I took my writing seriously, I have come across a variety of spaces that the owners have turned into offices. Sometimes they’ve squeezed a desk and computer into the cramped space under the stairs, or spread out in an enormous artificially-lit basement or high up in an attic; […]
Why I Wrote Grief Works
Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death, and Surviving (Scribner; January 16, 2018; https://griefworks.co.uk) – is a warm, compassionate guide to grief and grieving by prominent UK bereavement expert Julia Samuel. Samuel – close friend to the late Princess Diana and godmother to Prince George – has spent 25 years working with the bereaved as a […]
Let Writing Be the Cure
Writing is my passion, my therapy, and the way I process the world. Even as a child, I lived in my own headspace with stories that allowed me to imagine a bright future with alternating happy endings—depending on whether I wanted to marry Donny Osmond or become the next Charlotte Bronte. After my young son […]
Writing to Process Trauma, by Elizabeth Moore
A few months after my daughter Cassie died, I stumbled upon a chat room for suicide survivors. All the participants had recently lost a loved one to suicide. In all my years of being a registered nurse and helping patients’ families cope with grief, I had never seen such raw and tortured emotions as those […]
Interview with Anna Quinn, Author of The Night Child
Anna Quinn’s breathtaking debut novel examines the impact of traumatic childhood experiences and the fragile line between past and present. Exquisitely nuanced and profoundly intimate, The Night Child is a story of resilience, hope, and the capacity of the mind, body, and spirit to save itself despite all odds. We’re very excited to feature her here on […]
Inspiration Behind The Welcome Home Diner
If you’re the last person to leave Detroit, don’t forget to turn off the lights. This is the first sentence of my new release, THE WELCOME HOME DINER, and contemporary Detroit was the primary inspiration behind writing this book. There were other motivating factors—insight into the food business, personal intimacies—but I’ll get to those later. […]
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