Tag: women writers
Jumpstart Your Writing
There are some writers who don’t actually believe in writer’s block. Or maybe they call it other names like “procrastination” or “writers’ stall.” But as both a writer of sixteen novels and a clinical psychologist, I know it lurks in the minds of most of us. I’d like to offer a few suggestions for moving […]
Take Up Some Room, and Other Public Speaking Tips for Women Writers
Public speaking is a part of every author’s platform for promoting books. I’m always cautious about painting any group with the broad brush—most especially when it comes to culture or gender. Still, one pattern has stared me in the face across the decades of coaching hundreds of public speaking students. In greater numbers than their […]
On Writing: Ausma Zehanat Khan
Crime fiction has no shortage of gutsy, brilliant and intriguingly flawed heroines, so when I set about writing my own mystery series, I knew I wanted one of my detectives to embody those same qualities. Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty are partners who work at Community Policing, a unit that investigates crimes that impact minority […]
Diane Jeffrey on A Sense Of Place
We’ve all read novels where the setting stays with us as much as the characters once we’ve finished reading the last page. The London depicted in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, the wild Yorkshire moors in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Middle-earth in JRR Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings books; C.S. Lewis’s Narnia… In many novels, […]
Writing Process, Routine, and Craft
Writing is craft as much as it is art. Without the strong support of a good practice, it is very hard to create good work – at least, this is what I have found with my writing. Without a strong routine, my work is haphazard and frustrating and I fall into all the bad habits, […]
Seven Ways To Become A Better Writer
Somewhere along the way to becoming a novelist, I sidestepped the whole getting-a-formal-education thing that usually paves the path to traditional literary publication. It wasn’t an intentional decision; I had published a number of children’s picture books and arrived at a point in my career where I was ready to pitch an adult novel to […]
Twin Sisters and a Murder in a Gothic, Boarding-School Setting
By Michele Campbell, author of She Was the Quiet One. My first psychological thriller, It’s Always the Husband, struck a nerve with readers by chronicling the twisted relationships among three young women who meet as freshman roommates at an elite Ivy League college. The book is full of secrets and murder, but also focuses intensely […]
The 3 Biggest Myths About Outlining Your Novel
Do you avoid outlining, thinking it will stifle your creativity? Or do you do it but hate it? As a writing coach, I’ve seen outlining save so many authors — even those who consider themselves die-hard pantsers (writers who love to fly by the seats of their pants) or who are convinced they’ll never learn […]
The Dragon at The Gate
The Dragon at The Gate: An Edited Excerpt from Raw: My Journey from Anxiety to Joy, by Bella Mahaya Carter When I was younger, I never knew when my anxiety might get triggered, though I did know that extended family gatherings were likely to stir, if not explode, my issues to the surface. I remember […]
The Book in the Drawer, or Writing About Your Family Members
I started my first novel by accident. I was on the phone with my mother at the time—and to keep myself sane while I talked to her, I idly started typing what she was saying in her animated, breathy, giddy voice. She had just that day decided to get married again! To a man she […]
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