Category: On Writing
Writing Syria
Those of us who write are always more than just writers. We are parents, children, workers, volunteers, gardeners, tree huggers, high-flyers, low-flyers, all types of flyers. I am a writer who (sometimes) combines writing with social activism. In 2013 I became a volunteer activist for Syria Solidarity UK. We work with refugee and other activist […]
Writing Past the “Happily Ever After”
There’s an image I remember from a movie I watched as a child, of a princess looking across the sea at a castle on a mountain, her soon-to-be home with the prince of her dreams. With that scene, the movie ended, but my contemplating had just begun. What happens now, I wondered. How do the […]
Writing Well, Thanks to Mom
There was always a distance between my mother and my writing. For the longest time, she rarely read what I wrote. It bothered me a lot. And I often drowned in bitterness about it. When on Friday, May 30, 2014, I was invited to do one of my biggest literary readings in NYC at KGB […]
Motivating Factors in My Life
Martha Lemasters spent almost ten years working as a PR writer at Cape Kennedy as a member of IBM’s team on NASA’s Apollo Program. Those years saw remarkable success in seven Apollo launches and six moon landings. Lemasters worked her way up the ladder from secretary to a respected writer and managed to find her […]
Chasing the Muse
Writers are often asked where they find their inspiration. ‘How on earth did you come up with that idea? I wouldn’t know where to start!’ For me, the ideas don’t flow until I begin writing, one thought then leading to another. I don’t know everything before I start, how could I? And would I still […]
Embrace Criticism, But Be True To Yourself
From our very first creative class, writers are conditioned to embrace honest – sometimes brutal – feedback, as a means of refining our art and making us into better authors. That said, it is human nature to feel cut to the bone when somebody lambasts our metaphorical baby – usually the result of months (or […]
Sending the Elevator Back Down
Several years ago, I heard an author say that when a writer “makes it,” it becomes his or her job to send the elevator back down for those waiting their turn. It was a great way to encourage authors who’ve made it to the other side—who got the publishing deal or who’ve seen their book […]
Writing the Unthinkable
When I first started to write, it was to escape. I longed, like a snorkeler, to slip beneath cool waters and linger below the surface of another world. Bangkok was a city burning on its fringes with protests, and I began by invoking these sights and smells. This grew into a novel, a portrait of […]
Reaching Back and Recovering Women’s Voices
My passion is bringing women back from the past. I wrote Wilde’s Women when I realised that (male, for the most part) biographers had largely ignored the brilliant women who helped make Oscar Wilde the man he was. That’s why, last Saturday, 26 November, having spent two intensive days sitting in a lecture theatre in […]
Why It’s Important To Write -and Read- Romance and Erotica In An Age Of Plentiful Porn
He’s one of my oldest friends, and so, when the words come out of his mouth, I first think I’ve misheard him. “Excuse me?” I say. And he says it again, and I ask him to repeat it, again. No, that’s what he actually said. “How do your parents feel about your new career as […]
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