Tag: featured

My Twisty Turny Road to Publication – Susan Crawford

My Twisty Turny Road to Publication – Susan Crawford

I have always written. When I was a child, I had diaries jam-packed with angst and secrets, and, later, notebooks filled with fairly random thoughts, short-story parts, poetry. Writing was my escape as was reading. It was my therapy, my emotional purging, my joy. When my family exasperated me, an unhappily common occurrence, I would […]

April 20, 2018 | By | Reply More
To Play Again

To Play Again

At age twenty-one, while she was working with the legendary Nadia Boulanger in France, concert pianist Carol Rosenberger was stricken with paralytic polio—a condition that knocked out the very muscles she needed in order to play. But Rosenberger refused to give up. Over the next ten years, against all medical advice, she struggled to rebuild […]

April 20, 2018 | By | Reply More
Five Lessons on Writing and Motherhood

Five Lessons on Writing and Motherhood

When people see me with three young children, they assume I’m a full-time housewife. On the other hand, writer friends are often surprised when I tell them I have three kids. On March 6th, 2018, my debut novel, RAINBIRDS, came out. I first wrote it for NaNoWriMo in 2013. At that time, I already had […]

April 19, 2018 | By | Reply More
On Genre Hopping

On Genre Hopping

In a recent fellowship application, I described myself as a “multidisciplinary” writer. (I feel like could devise a better term, but until then, this one is as good as any.) Here’s a rough synopsis of what I do: I’ve been writing plays for fifteen years now, currently I have a musical in the works; I […]

April 19, 2018 | By | Reply More
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A PLOT OR CHARACTER HITS TOO CLOSE TO HOME?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A PLOT OR CHARACTER HITS TOO CLOSE TO HOME?

My father and I have had a tenuous relationship at times so when my first novel captured the painful feelings of my protagonist losing her father at the age of four, my own father immediately went on a tirade: “You killed me off on page 3?” And when my ex-boyfriend from high school’s mother cornered […]

April 17, 2018 | By | 2 Replies More
The Beauty of Dirty Skin by Dr. Whitney Bowe

The Beauty of Dirty Skin by Dr. Whitney Bowe

My path to writing The Beauty of Dirty Skin began in a very unlikely place – the hospital. When I was ten years old, I became very sick due to a bad bug, a parasite, which found its way to my intestines. My doctors, unable to identify the source of my chronic pain, gave me […]

April 17, 2018 | By | Reply More
Hold the Lecture and Keep Book Pages Turning

Hold the Lecture and Keep Book Pages Turning

There are few things worse than being lectured by a novelist when you want to be entertained. That’s not to say entertaining fiction can only be happy and inconsequential. Both of my historical novels address weighty events in U.S. history – slavery and environmental ruin, discrimination and economic disaster. When weaving a tale with subject […]

April 17, 2018 | By | 4 Replies More
Music, Writing, And Novel Soundtracks

Music, Writing, And Novel Soundtracks

The most frequent question that people ask me when I tell them I’m a writer is, ‘Where do you get your inspiration from?’ It’s a valid query, given that writing a novel requires discipline and imagination. To be honest, inspiration can come from anywhere and at any time, and, being a writer, nothing is wasted. […]

April 15, 2018 | By | 1 Reply More
What I’ve Learned Since Getting a Publishing Contract

What I’ve Learned Since Getting a Publishing Contract

  There are many things I didn’t know before I had a publishing contract. Like publicity is largely self-generated, that social media would rise as it has, I didn’t anticipate how the second book would be so much easier and enjoyable and… I didn’t know they would be so little time to write. I imagined a publishing contract […]

April 14, 2018 | By | 1 Reply More
Hannah Fielding: A Writing Q&A  

Hannah Fielding: A Writing Q&A  

Do you write full-time? Yes, whenever possible I write Monday to Friday and even at week-ends when I can get away with it. I have been doing so for some six years now, since I signed a publishing contract for my debut novel. For years before that, I yearned to write full time, but my […]

April 12, 2018 | By | Reply More