Tag: featured

No, I Haven’t Quit My Day Job

No, I Haven’t Quit My Day Job

Now that I’ve been published for almost a year, a question I’m hearing more and more is, “Have you quit your day job yet?” When I finish wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes, I always explain that, no, I’m still working. The next question, of course is, “Wow! How do you do it?” […]

March 6, 2018 | By | 2 Replies More
Q and A with Yang Huang

Q and A with Yang Huang

YANG HUANG grew up in China’s Jiangsu province and participated in the 1989 student uprisings. Her debut novel, Living Treasures, won the Nautilus Book Award silver medal in fiction, and her essays and short stories have appeared in The Margins, Eleven Eleven, Asian Pacific American Journal, the Evansville Review, Futures, Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, and […]

March 6, 2018 | By | Reply More
ON EVOLUTION AS A WRITER

ON EVOLUTION AS A WRITER

As I prepare to release my fifth book and I look back on my evolution as a writer, I am reflecting on how much has changed … and how much has stayed the same. I wrote my first book with no knowledge and no plan—a truly wonderful way to write a book. Each day I […]

March 6, 2018 | By | Reply More
Writers: Empower Yourself With Self-Care

Writers: Empower Yourself With Self-Care

It’s Women’s History Month. Social media is ablaze with quotes and pictures of women’s empowerment. It’s that time of the year when we start to look at impossible as the “new” possible. We remind each other that we aren’t alone. And that a supportive community exists—online and offline—that holds us in our weaknesses and strengths […]

March 5, 2018 | By | 1 Reply More
Pen to Paper

Pen to Paper

Pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, my need to write is innate. When I was ten years old my mother gave me a beautiful red diary with a small gold lock. To me, it was quite magical. I kept it in my drawer and began to write in it most days. When it was full, […]

March 3, 2018 | By | Reply More
Family Matters and Writing

Family Matters and Writing

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina I’m not sure that I agree with Tolstoy’s observation that all happy families are alike. After all, each person is a unique soul with her own viewpoint. A person in a happy family may have […]

March 2, 2018 | By | 1 Reply More
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger!

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger!

  It was the wise old philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who came up with the plum that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and it does seem that he had a point.  Whilst huge traumas can be psychologically damaging, the smaller hiccups can actually make us more resilient.  In other words, a bit of misery […]

March 2, 2018 | By | Reply More
BEING AGENTED IRL – Part One

BEING AGENTED IRL – Part One

A Twenty-Five-Question Interview Published as a Five Part Series | Hosted by MM Finck | | Anonymously Answered By Agented Authors* with Varying Publishing Career Durations and Successes from Debut to Bestselling and Represented by Multiple Literary Agencies of Varying Sizes | QUESTION ONE Why did you choose the traditional publishing track? Abha: Because I […]

February 28, 2018 | By | Reply More
In Praise of Difficult Women:  Life Lessons from 29 Heroines Who Dared to Break the Rules

In Praise of Difficult Women: Life Lessons from 29 Heroines Who Dared to Break the Rules

When I began writing In Praise of Difficult Women in 2014, I had no idea that it would publish during a time when women, by and large, had had enough. Writing and publishing books continues to be the occupation of the tortoise living in the era of hares on speed. Who knew time would be […]

February 27, 2018 | By | Reply More
Tapping the Experts: How to Enrich Your Research and Your Writing

Tapping the Experts: How to Enrich Your Research and Your Writing

Books are great, the Internet can’t be beat for looking up and verifying facts quickly, and libraries are awesome. When I’m researching a novel, one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon is in the dusty, musty, bookish-smelling stacks of a university library. With my list of sources arranged in alphabetical order by call […]

February 26, 2018 | By | 2 Replies More