Category: On Writing
How I Found the Seed for The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker from My Own Family Tree By Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
My mother passed away in May 2015, six months after the release of my narrative nonfiction book, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels. When I heard that the book had made the New York Times best seller list, my mother was the first person I called, both of screaming incoherently and laughing through tears. She was the reason […]
Because I Have Lived It by Joanne E. Betzler
Joanne E. Betzler – author of Nothing to Discuss – Breaking From 20 Years of Intimate Partner Violence I grew up believing that abuse means visible scars and bruises. Broken bones. There was zero physical evidence that my 20-year marriage had swallowed me whole and erased my identity. From my insider perspective, the union was […]
Was It Worth It? A Journey of Leaving, Losing and Becoming by Maryam Rafiee
As a teenager, I dreamed of becoming a cycling champion, but there was no women’s team at the time. Cycling in public was also forbidden for women. I cycled through the streets of Tehran wearing loose jogging clothes and a cap, trying to look like a boy so I would not be stopped by the morality […]
On Writing ONLY GIRLS BLEED by Elaine Lawless
I took it personally when the Supreme Court eliminated the federal right to abortion in the United States on June 22, 2022. Not because I had ever had or needed an abortion, or thought I might become pregnant again, but because for fifty years, I had, like all women in my country, assumed I was […]
Staying Still By Hannah Adams
As a yoga teacher, I often say to my students, as they arrive in the fifth or sixth downward-facing dog of the class, that they have never done this downward dog before, and they will never do it again. Their task is to be still with it, to experience themselves within the pose, and to […]
It’s a Dog’s Life by Leslie Kain
I hadn’t had a dog in my life since Maddie, the golden retriever that grew up with my kids. But after my husband and I recently said goodbye to our eighteen-year-old cat Sheba (who’d become blind, and sat beside me in my writing chair, often walking on my keyboard), it was time to again welcome […]
From New Zealand To Perfectville: The Inspiration Behind My Novel By Yvonne Eve Walus
When my husband and I moved to New Zealand nearly thirty years ago, I fell in love with things that people born here often took for granted. The beaches. The green grass. The sense that children could disappear outside for hours and return muddy, tired and happy. New Zealand felt safe and orderly. It felt […]
The Ultimate Traitor: Background Story by Kathryn Gauci
I was drawn to writing a story about France’s worst serial killer of the 20th– Century, Dr Marcel Petiot, after watching a documentary about him. Writing novels set in WWII France, I was amazed that I had not heard of him before and the more I uncovered, the more astounding his story was. The German […]
Getting Past Stuck: Writing Flow Through Tarot and Improv by Jane Brookwood
Do you ever get stuck in the writing? You have a plan, you know where your characters need to be and how they’re going to get there, but suddenly the action feels flat, the dialogue uninspired, or you simply don’t know where to go next. A stall can sometimes feel like a brick wall, and […]
Zoje Stage: Authors Interviewing Characters
SOMETHING OF A CALLING Detective Andy Cooper is about to retire. She isn’t sure what’s next … perhaps traveling in the RV she has yet to buy, with a dog she doesn’t currently own. Perhaps gardening near the ever-shrinking patch of woods behind her house-once the cable company’s backhoe is removed. She’ll need to do something, […]
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