Tag: featured

The Story That Wouldn’t Let Go: Song of Belonging by Michelle St. Romain

The Story That Wouldn’t Let Go: Song of Belonging by Michelle St. Romain

I have loved books and writing for as long as I can remember. Books have been my constant companion and I’ve been writing in many forms since elementary school. At the age of 50, after decades of work in the nonprofit field, I decided that it was time to finally listen to the whispers from […]

June 17, 2026 | By | Reply More
Sheila Kimble-Haas on Writing Waiting for the Kick

Sheila Kimble-Haas on Writing Waiting for the Kick

The body in movement changes. Sometimes in small ways. Sometimes forever. My profession made movement inevitable. Midwife. Nurse practitioner. Humanitarian aid worker. I have landed in countries across Africa, on Native American reservations, in tiny towns throughout the American West, and north of the Arctic Circle. I have slept in mud huts, government housing, old […]

June 16, 2026 | By | Reply More
Judy Penz Sheluk: From Pink Slip to Published Author

Judy Penz Sheluk: From Pink Slip to Published Author

Two things happened in the winter of 2003 that changed the course of my life. The first was learning my job was being eliminated. “Right-sizing the organization” was how the HR Manager referred to it, my manager nodding somberly, as if hearing the news for the first time.  To be honest, I’d known it was […]

WRITING AND YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS: HOW TO FUEL YOUR INSPIRATION by Dr. Cristina LePort

WRITING AND YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS: HOW TO FUEL YOUR INSPIRATION by Dr. Cristina LePort

Sometimes, when we write, the words arrive as if someone were dictating them, and we are not entirely aware of how it happens. This is what we call inspiration.  Many writers think of inspiration as a mysterious force. It appears suddenly, like a gift from the gods, and disappears just as unpredictably. When it comes, […]

June 14, 2026 | By | Reply More
The Story Behind THE HAPPINESS PATHWAY by Charu Moorjani

The Story Behind THE HAPPINESS PATHWAY by Charu Moorjani

People kept telling me how beautiful I looked on my wedding day. I couldn’t feel any of it. My wedding day should have been the happiest day of my life. Everyone kept telling me it was. The venue was spectacular, an enormous outdoor farmhouse, the stage dressed like a movie set with performers costumed as […]

June 12, 2026 | By | Reply More
How I Became a Writer in Japan  By Suzanne Kamata

How I Became a Writer in Japan By Suzanne Kamata

I have wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl in Michigan. As a kid, I wrote stories on demand for my classmates, and produced and distributed what we would now call a zine to the people in my neighborhood. Later, I wrote features on topics as diverse as shoplifting and the […]

June 12, 2026 | By | Reply More
Joy Conditioning: How Writing About My Brother Brought Him Back By Larkin McPhee

Joy Conditioning: How Writing About My Brother Brought Him Back By Larkin McPhee

The story of my brother, Charles McPhee, was a film waiting to happen. The good-looking, charismatic host of the nationally syndicated radio program The Dream Doctor Show slurs his words on the radio. Listeners call in to ask if he is drunk. At age forty-four, Charles’s life is changed forever, along with his family, when […]

June 10, 2026 | By | Reply More
Long Story Short by Kathy Anderson

Long Story Short by Kathy Anderson

“The general reading public has no idea of what goes into a short story because it is literally short and can give the impression that the writer sat down and rattled the thing out in an hour or two.” —Annie Proulx How long did it take you to write those stories? is the hardest question […]

June 9, 2026 | By | Reply More
Authors Interviewing Characters: Laura Lekkos

Authors Interviewing Characters: Laura Lekkos

All the Little Ways In the vein of Pineapple Street and Such a Fun Age, a smart, heartfelt debut novel about two expecting mothers navigating motherhood, family life, and female friendship, whose bond is threatened by a shocking revelation. Victoria and Liz barely breathe the same air, but they collide headfirst when they meet in a group for expectant […]

June 9, 2026 | By | Reply More
The Story Behind The Making of a Witch

The Story Behind The Making of a Witch

By Judy Molland “The last person to be sentenced to death for witchcraft in England was Alice Molland at Exeter in 1685.”  I read this in Keith Thomas’s tome Religion and the Decline of Magic, when I was 25, and gasped. I had never before seen my last name Molland in a published text. Thrilled, […]

June 9, 2026 | By | Reply More