Tag: women writers
Fried Mosquitoes and a Cup of Hot Tea: From Piano Lady to Picture Book Author
by Paulette Bochnig Sharkey My first book contract and my first grandchild arrived together. In October 2018, I was in Wasilla, Alaska, staying with my daughter during her last month of pregnancy while her husband was away on an overseas military assignment. Operating on Michigan time, I woke up early my first Monday morning and opened […]
Drawing Inspiration from Life
When I started writing my first novel almost twenty years ago I had no idea what direction my writing would take. Initially Slur had a chic lit feel to it but as I headed towards the halfway stage I felt that the novel wasn’t really going anywhere. I put it to one side for a […]
The Write Cocktail for Your Book
There’s doubt that Ernest Hemingway actually said, “Write drunk and edit sober.” He denies that he ever mixed his pleasure with his work. He was a professional, and writing was his work. Writing drunk, Hemingway alluded, was something only William Faulkner did. Twentieth century author shade aside, the accuracy of the quote is just a […]
How To Handle Feedback On Your Writing
Let’s be honest here and say the only feedback a writer really enjoys getting is along these lines: I’m in awe of how clever you are and I wouldn’t change a word. But… We all know that feedback is vitally important. Every writer needs it. Even the Stephen Kings and Ann Tylers of this world. […]
Getting Ideas And What To Do With Them
Getting Ideas (And what to do once you’ve got them) As writers, we often get asked: “Where do you get your ideas from?” It’s a question that always tickles me. Perhaps it seems as though we writers have admittance to a special “world of ideas” that ordinary people can’t access? Perhaps we seem so much cleverer […]
Unusual Writing Help
By now, if you’re a writer or an aspiring writer, you’ve heard all the advice about what it takes to get your story down on paper. Write consistently, plow through a crappy first draft, toughen up and learn to take criticism and rejection, read a lot of other people’s books. But people don’t talk as […]
Looking Back to Look Forward: Or, Why We Read Historical Fiction
By Carrie Callaghan This is a true story. In the winter of 1938, before Hitler invaded anything, Milly Bennett sat in a room in New Jersey and looked out the window. Seven or eight children dressed warmly laughed and pulled their sleds in the snow. She typed, “I have looked into the future and it […]
The Writing of Hunting the Devil
When I decided to celebrate my sixtieth birthday in Africa, I didn’t realize the culmination of my life-long love affair with Tarzan would result in my book Hunting the Devil. As I made plans, I asked my son if he’d accompany me, and he replied with the ultimate teenage endorsement: “I guess so.” With this […]
A Letter To My Unpublished Self
Dear Andie, Wow, who knew writing a letter to your unpublished self would be so hard? I’m feeling many things as I sit at my computer and think back on your life as an unpublished writer. Immediately I’m tearing up, and there’s a lump in my throat. Why? Because little one, the next ten years […]
Behind Every Lie – Finding Beauty in the Broken By: Christina McDonald
I wrote Behind Every Lie in the aftermath of the news story about Chanel Miller (known at the time as Emily Doe), who was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner at Stanford University. Like many around the world, I was profoundly moved by her victim impact statement. After reading it I thought, ‘How do you go […]
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