Tag: women writers
Tackling New Writing Challenges
I’ve been writing contemporary series romance for Harlequin since 2004. I love writing family drama that revolves around a couple falling in love, but after a decade of writing shorter storylines I was growing antsy and wanted to try my hand at writing a “bigger” book. I spent a year working on a single title […]
On Writing Psychological Suspense
How to Make a Friend grew from my desire to explore what happens to unhappy and lonely children when they become adults. Having been in that situation myself I know that it is possible to lead a perfectly normal life, to make friends and build good relationships, but that it never leaves you completely. There […]
Amanda Prowse on Writing
I always find it hard trying to explain to non-writers, the need, the compulsion I have to put pen to paper, or more accurately, finger to keyboard! I’m never sure if it’s because I didn’t start writing, properly writing, until I was forty and am therefore playing catch up, or whether I have caught this […]
Let It Go
Years ago, at a party in Brighton I was introduced to a writer whose book had just been nominated for the Booker Prize. I had just started telling people I was writing my first novel. He was gracious, charming. ‘What’s your process?’ he said. Process? My mind went blank. Writers have processes? If I have […]
To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish
‘‘Are you sure you want to self publish again?” asked a colleague of mine who is traditionally published. We were discussing my plans to self publish my historical novel. I felt defensive because I knew what was coming next. I’d heard it before. “You will never land a traditional publisher if you do. Believe me, […]
I Published My Book! Now What?
Once upon a time my writing life centered on writing, getting a short story published, writing another story, and so on. It went this way for decades. People asked me from time to time why I didn’t get a collection together, and publish an actual book. Finally, I did. All The Roads That Lead From […]
Q&A with Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke
Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, the writing team behind THE STATUS OF ALL THINGS, YOUR PERFECT LIFE, and the upcoming THE YEAR WE TURNED FORTY (expected publication April 2016), all published by Simon & Schuster/Atria, have been best friends for over twenty-five years. They blog (hilariously) at LizandLisa.com where they share their lives and this […]
The Magic in Magical Realism
So much has been said about magic realism that it’s difficult to add anything new to the conversation. However, I wondered if putting on my poet’s hat and parsing the two words might crack open another perspective. The term magic implies some slight of hand, an ability to make things appear and disappear at will. […]
Authenticity in Novels
At some point in the 1980s I came across Almonds and Raisins, a family saga by Maisie Mosco. Two things drew me to Maisie’s work: it described the Jewish immigrant experience in the first half of the 20th century, and it was set in my home town, Manchester. Maisie, who was born in Oldham in […]
5 Steps to Original Character Creation
If you’ve done any fiction writing any your life, you’ve probably received some writing advice. And you were probably to do this: Avoid clichés in your writing! But what’s hilarious about that advice is that the advice itself is a cliché. (Whoa, so meta.) In fact, writing advice itself is full of great clichés. Let’s all […]
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