Tag: featured
Why All Writers Are Worldbuilders
Sometime last year I remember reading an article about worldbuilding which suggested it was overrated and unnecessary. I had the perhaps predictable kneejerk reaction about it. After all, I take a considerable amount of joy when it comes to the worldbuilding process. I really love worldbuilding. A lot. Then I really thought about it. This […]
Braver Than the Average “Girl”
Decades before there was a month dedicated to women’s history and long before the words “Nevertheless, she persisted” become a cultural touchpoint and rallying cry, there were groups of American women that that were daring to make history in extraordinary ways. Some of these women still have yet to receive recognition they deserve. One such […]
Rice-A-Roni and French Fries: Fear and the Juxtaposition of Art and Life
‘Life imitates art,’ or so the old cliché goes. I wonder, though, if it isn’t the other way around. After all, another cliché tells us to ‘write what you know.’ So, does art imitate life? This question ran in a continuous loop in my mind as I wrote Flygirl, the story about Tris Miles, a […]
The First Rule Of Write Club…
There was a bit of a to-do on twitter recently about big-name author Johnathan Franzen’s rather idiosyncratic writing rules, which he had been kind enough to share (some thought a lot less kindly of them). My takeaway from that was: The first rule of write club is…well, you know the rest. So when I was […]
Writing And Belonging, Daisy McNally
I came to live in a city five years ago and felt foreign and uneasy for the first twelve months and the best part of the next. Of course, cities are busy places and that was not unexpected. It just seemed that all the all the busy-ness was connected; whether those I came across were […]
Self Publishing In Perspective
Two years ago, I became a widow at the age of 45. My lovely husband Ian died at home following a year-long battle with cancer. He was only 52. As I held his hand, he took his last breaths and his heart slowly and peacefully came to a stop. And that moment altered me forever. […]
How Fire Led To Writing
In March 2017, a fire ripped through my home, burning off the roof and destroying most of the interior. Thankfully nobody was injured but I was in the house alone when the fire took hold. The feeling of helplessness, as I stood outside and watched the flames and smoke billow from my house, is something […]
The Inspiration Behind Blood For Blood
‘Where do you get the ideas for your books?’ is one of the questions many writers I know dread. Afterall, how do you explain the apparently illogical flashes of inspiration that seem to come out of nowhere? The follow-up to BLOOD FOR BLOOD (NOTHING TO LOSE, coming out at the end of March) popped into […]
Love_Is_Love: Anthology For LGBTQIA+ teens
Love_Is_Love is a collection of poems, short stories, and visual art for LGBTQIA+ teens, edited by Emma Eden Ramos. We are delighted to share one of the collection’s poems and two of the artworks. Shapeshifter By Robin Anna Smith I exist somewhere between ` a match and a flame, a tear and the sea, a […]
My Midlife Career
I didn’t set out to become a women’s fiction author. As with most things in my life, I happened into it. I’ve always been an avid reader and often wondered whether I had at least one novel in me. My brother died of a drug overdose in 1999. Several years later, when I was still struggling […]
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