Category: On Writing
How Novels Change
I thought my first novel was about a young girl who lives in a world of her imagination but I was wrong. When writing it I enjoyed the matter of fact way Jennifer Hamilton spoke to the poet Shelley and to Aphra Behn, the outrageous Restoration playwright who is said to be the first woman […]
We Are Not Labels
Once upon a time, I was a bad-ass lawyer. Clients from all over the world came to me to buy and sell companies in the Netherlands. I could swing my big dick with the best of them. Often, I was the only woman in the room and an Asian American at that. If that was […]
A Wrinkle in my Time-Line
“What are you reading?” My friend Tina was a bit of a bookworm; that was one reason why we were friends. But this was the first time she’d taken a book out to read every break time and lunch time, sloping off to the edges of the school field where footballs and nosey friends wouldn’t […]
Notes on the Flesh: An Arab Disability Narrative
“The MRI itself was an uncanny and strange experience. I had never been in that machine –it was very much like a white coffin. You get wrapped up in a blanket, like a baby, or a dead baby…Whatever happens, you cannot move” (Alshammari, 39) There is usually a strong and clear distinction between academics and […]
Recommended Reading: Not Your Mammy’s Books
Despite so much that’s terrible these days it’s a wonderful time to be a writer and a reader. Amidst growing attacks on the truth, and the maniacal scapegoating of fake news, there’s burgeoning honesty, bravery, inclusion, and revolution in fiction, and in particular Irish women’s fiction. Irish literature—once dominated by men, suppressive norms, and scenes […]
Why I Switched From YA to Middle-Grade Fiction
Let the record show that I didn’t start out writing middle-grade fiction. I started in young adult, and had three books published in that category before trying my hand at a younger age group. So, why did I switch? What was the draw for me to suddenly drop the angst and excitement and budding romances […]
Why I write, by Phaedra Patrick
A lady came along to a library event I delivered recently (I don’t know her name so I’ll call her Mrs Miggs) where she proceeded (rather nicely) to list a few things she didn’t really like about my debut novel, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper. Please believe me that this doesn’t happen often! Readers, […]
Republishing My Indie Book: Not Just An Ego Trip
Self-publishing my book felt like giving birth in a bar. The atmosphere was unwelcoming, the people who assisted were incompetent—so much so that I felt I was doing it alone on a cold, cement floor reeking of cigarette smoke and liquor—and the product (had I not designed the cover, hired a professional editor, and done […]
An American Road Trip ‘Playlist’ of Books, by Helen McClory
When I started writing Flesh of the Peach I was struggling to live and write in New York. One summer, I decided to take a research trip by bus to where Sarah Browne, the novel’s immigrant protagonist, settles herself against her own failures: New Mexico. The journey took over 2,000 hungry, dirty, beautiful miles in […]
The Creative Unconscious
There’s a lot to be said for writing to a plan or outline. Words emerge much faster if we know where our characters are going and what they’ll encounter along the way. But there’s a downside to approaching our work with an overly rational mindset. Too much order and we lose the capacity to amaze […]
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