Tag: women writers
Writing About Love
It wasn’t until I started writing fiction that I became aware of the widespread tendency to view men’s writing about love, family and relationships as a meaningful reflection on the human condition and women’s as frivolous and inconsequential. Increasingly there is a will to challenge and redress this prejudice and its consequences and that is […]
Place Settings
I’ve often said that I could live in an airlock in outer space for the rest of my life and never miss fresh air. Fresh baked bread, I’d miss. But sunshine, a cool breeze, and the way the moonlight dances across the surface of the ocean? Meh. Suffice it to say, I am not what […]
Catharsis
Over the years, my reading tastes have run the gamut from bodice rippers to serious literary works. I’ve devoured spy novels and biographies alike; lapped up women’s fiction and mysteries of all kinds. As a rule, if a story can elicit strong emotion, I’m all over it. Although lately, all I want to do is […]
Getting Past the Opening: Where to Start your Novel
We sit in front of the keyboard, poised, with an idea for a book spinning in our head, and find ourselves afraid to start. After all, we are aware we have one paragraph, or three at best, to capture the attention of the reader. What do we do? My friend and mentor, Elizabeth Searle, offered […]
5 Tips to Turn Ordinary Interactions into Book Sales
In the course of a day, even introverted writers (which I must admit, I’m not) have the opportunity to turn everyday interactions into book buzz. This week alone, I was talking to the Macy’s clerk and as she hung the cute new dress I was buying, I mentioned that I had a book coming out […]
Writing an Authentic YA Voice
We all remember what it feels like to be a teenager, right? A tumultuous time filled with angst and first love and new friends and burgeoning independence. Whether we had positive or negative experiences in our high school years, they tend to stick with us. I speak for myself when I say that I remember […]
Patient H69: The Story of my Second Sight
I am methodically gathering visual information from those around me – building a mental picture of what I look like. I’m told my pupils are hugely and disturbingly dilated, the blue irises overtaken by black, unseeing orbs. I imagine that I resemble an owl, or with my increasingly unkempt hair, a zombie from a bad […]
Invisible Women In The History Of Literature
As a child, I loved to write secrets in invisible ink. When I wrote words with orange juice, they could be read only in the heat of a candle flame. And that is how it felt when looking for women writers to balance the record during my research for A Biography of Story, A Brief […]
What College Math Taught Me About Writing
I remember the first time I cried in the shower. It wasn’t over a boy. And it didn’t involve a falling out with a friend. It was about numbers—and one big, fat letter. I had just finished my first semester at college and received my grades in the mail. This was, as you’ve already imagined, […]
If I’m Neuro-Typical, Can I Write About the Neuro-Diverse?
In 2003, Mark Haddon made a well-deserved splash with his first novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It’s a coming-of-age tale posing as a mystery, narrated by Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old with Asperger’s Syndrome. It was a break-through book, one that introduced people on the autism spectrum, especially the autistic savant, to […]
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