Tag: featured
A Lab Of One’s Own, Science And Suffrage In The First World War
Serendipity is my favorite word and my guiding principle for research. Coined by society gossip Horace Walpole in the eighteenth century, it originated from an ancient Persian fairy tale about three princes from Serendib (now Sri Lanka), who travelled in new directions by taking advantage of whatever chance happened to throw at them. About five […]
After Your Death, the Royalties Keep Coming, But Where Do They Go?
In the United States, death is a legal process. If you die with a will, a court metes out your assets according to your wishes. If you die intestate, your property is divvied up according to a legal formula put into play by your state’s legislature, typically handing over your assets to your spouse and […]
Basia Briggs on Writing Memoir
Basia Briggs is a luminary of the London social scene and a distinguished fundraiser, having played a fundamental part in the installation of the Queen Mother’s Gate in 1993 and the regeneration of Hyde Park Corner. She has written for various publications including The Telegraph and the Daily Mail. Born in London, she emigrated briefly to Australia before returning to […]
Did You Write The Same Novel Twice?
It’s been said that writers have one story to tell. I don’t know that I agree, but I do know there may be underlying, compelling themes that crop up in story after story, and even characters seem to demand more life. They live in our heads, after all. They have more to tell us. Just […]
The Long and Winding Road to My Agent
There I stood, hands trembling, moments away from playing a starring role in my very own thriller. One where an irate passenger strangles an unsuspecting gate attendant in front of hundreds of horrified witnesses. I had flown from LAX to Atlanta and was attempting to board my connecting flight to Tennessee. At the gate a […]
The Gift of Writing Regularly
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the process of writing. Thinking is great. Doing is better. To encourage you to keep writing, I’d like to share a few excerpts from an interview Carol Smallwood did with me about my new book, Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62. The title says it all, […]
Luck In Writing
I’m lucky. Not in a “you’re caller number ten” kind of way. I’ve never won concert tickets or a free cruise. I’ve never hit triple sevens or called out, “BINGO!” No, I’ve got the slow-burning kind of luck, the kind of luck that builds into something momentous. Today my debut novel, Between Earth and Sky, […]
Waiting: A Helpful Guide In Disguise
Alice Tallmadge’s memoir Now I Can See the Moon—A Story of a Social Panic, False Memories and a Life Cut Short, focuses on the disturbing social panic over child sexual abuse that roiled communities across the U.S. (and some in Canada and Great Britain) during the 1980s and into the 1990s. A few years ago, I […]
Why Write?
Like J K Rowling, the big impetus to me getting my first book written – and then published – was poverty. No money, no job on the horizon and a mountain of bills. To put it poetically – or as a story teller would – it was like being a donkey beaten with a big […]
Exploring All Forms of Writing
I was offered my first professional writing contract in the 1980s – a two novel deal writing ‘bonkbusters’ for a major publishing house. It was in the days when vanity publishing was frowned upon and only traditional publishing gave an author credibility. This was long before Amazon invented Kindle. I thought I was made for […]
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