Category: On Writing
On Writing: Barbara Sissel
My children were born in a hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, but their first home was a state-issued, singlewide trailer on prison grounds some 70 miles east of Lexington in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. I was expecting my first son when I moved there with my then husband who had been promoted from prison […]
Forty-Two Year Old Women Don’t Have Adventures
Forty-two year old women don’t have adventures. She’d just be more appealing if she were thinner, taller and younger. We’ll buy it if you made her 25 and sexier. Female protagonists should NOT be flawed.. Why does she eat so much? And that wine—seriously? Can’t you… No I can’t and no I didn’t. Those were […]
Life In Words — My Writing Journey
As a young Scots lass whose family led a somewhat peripatetic existence, moving around the world, reading and writing were a constant that I treasured and often turned to. I was initially inspired by the work of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’d draw lines on plain paper and write adventure stories, then bind the pages […]
Q&A with Kathleen Barber
Kathleen Barber was raised in Galesburg, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University School of Law, and previously practiced bankruptcy law at large firms in Chicago and New York. A registered yoga teacher and incurable wanderer, when Kathleen isn’t writing, she enjoys traveling the world with her husband. Her debut thriller […]
The Possibilities are Limitless
Being an author to me is more than just getting published and hitting the bestseller list. For me, it is about reaching people through my stories, either fiction or non-fiction; knowing that somewhere, someone is touched by my words as they come to life and spark another’s imagination. The struggle for many authors to make […]
From Playwright To Memoir
I live in Bethnal Green in London, England. When I was born it was a place nobody went to, except the locals who lived there. Even the police gave it a wide berth and we pretty much managed on our own without them. The occasional murder elicited their attention, but that was all. I didn’t […]
What Makes a Beautiful Sentence?
What is it that makes a sentence beautiful? Why does a phrase stay with us, make us pause, make us smile, make us feel? As writers, we’re in the business of words. According to our unique voices, we choose the exact right words in the exact right order. We evaluate, test, and try out words […]
Writing Poetry for Beginners
Adapted from Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life by Diana Raab Why Write Poetry? Poetry is the voice of the soul. Poets help us see a slice of the world in a way that we might not have observed it before. They highlight details to cast a […]
Seduced by Landscape
A sense of place. What first truly evoked this for me was the nineteenth-century English countryside of Jane Eyre, with its heather knolls and stone halls set against wild, thorny wood. Then came Wuthering Heights, and its ominous, misty moors. These dreamy, gothic landscapes not only stirred my imagination, but fueled my desire to write […]
The Pros and Cons of Cross Genre Fiction
My author website makes a bold statement: “Isabella May is impossible to pigeonhole: From food to drink, magic to travel, and satire to jump-off-the-page characters, her books contain a little bit of EVERYTHING!” Alas it is true… I am the dreaded cross-genre author. Always have been, probably always will be. With one novel, ‘Oh! What […]
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