Tag: featured
Why I Wrote The Burn Zone
I wrote The Burn Zone as a catharsis; I had to get the story out of me. Dr. Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” I believe she is right. The story was consuming me. It was tearing me apart from within. I was filled with […]
The Birth of a Novel
In 1999 a good friend called and asked if I would like to join her for a writer’s workshop in Leavenworth, Washington. “Have you heard of Barbara Kingsolver?? She’s one of the teachers.” I almost dropped the phone… of course I knew her work – loved her work – slept with her work under my […]
Humoring the Muse
My muse, a.k.a. the voice in my head, is a wonderful, fickle, and demanding soul. She’s opinionated, diverse, and relentless. If I weren’t an author I might consider handing her over to the care of a mental health practitioner. But alas, as she’s my bread and butter, we’ve worked out a compromise. I write what […]
Deborah Batterman Interview
Deborah Batterman is the author of Just Like February (a novel), Shoes Hair Nails (short stories), and Because my name is mother (essays). She is a Pushcart nominee, and her award-winning stories and essays have appeared in anthologies as well as print and online literary journals. A native New Yorker, she has worked over the years as a writer, editor, and teaching artist. […]
Switching From Literary To Historical Fiction
When I set out to write my historical novel, the research shelf on my bookcase overflowed onto the floor. I approached the story with the eye of the scholar, the young woman I was when I developed my doctoral thesis all those years ago. It was the day of card files in the library and […]
Bundle of Joy
My husband and I both have high-pressure jobs. We both have two children at home who are under the age of eight. We both have a house to pay for and maintain. We both need sleep, food, haircuts, a social life, and downtime. And we both need to find time for the new season of […]
Humor and History
If you’re trying to write somewhat humorous fiction for kids about historical characters, it helps if the historical characters are quirky. So, keeping that principle in mind, it was easier to wring some humor out of John Adams than it was with George Washington. I’m writing a series of middle grade novels that feature regular […]
Drawing Novel Ideas from the Dust
Novelists are often asked how they find ideas. Frankly, the ideas usually often find us. That’s the short, smart-alecky answer nobody wants to hear, but it’s hard to provide more detail to such a broad question. Since the release of my second historical novel, Peculiar Savage Beauty, many readers have asked specifically how the idea […]
Tell Your Stories—Now More Than Ever!
Christine Blasey-Ford had memories, opinions, facts, and rights. One of her rights was to be heard. So she told her story about a 36-year-old high school encounter with 2 drunken seniors who attacked her body to prove their dominance. Or maybe for a laugh. Or because they could. She told it to her husband before […]
Why I Ended Up Writing What I Knew
They say a writer writes best about what they know, and I have followed this dictum in my second novel, Wyld Dreamers. It’s broadly based on the years I lived in the English countryside in the 1970s. Milking cows, baking bread and hay-making, I fell in love with it all and became what some people […]
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