Tag: women writers
’How’s Your Book Doing?’ and Other Post-Publication Questions
By Lorraine Devon Wilke Every step in the process of birthing a book has a life of its own: Imagining the book. Writing the book. Editing the book. Querying the book. Not querying the book. Publishing the book. Celebrating the publishing of the book. Then marketing and promoting the book. And marketing and promoting the […]
Some of My Best Writing Teachers Have Been People in Prison
By Joyce Hinnefeld In the spring of 2019, near the end of my twenty-five years of teaching writing at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I decided to try something new. After participating in a Story Exchange training session with Narrative 4—a group that works on “building compassionate classrooms . . . one story at a […]
HOW A FAMILY HEALTH ISSUE INSPIRED AND INFORMED ONE OF MY STORY LINES
I started writing The Summer of Love and Death in January 2022 and submitted it to my publisher in November 2022. In this early draft of my novel, the story did not include Vera Ford, a pivotal character in the earlier books, and the mother of my protagonist, Detective Susan Ford. I couldn’t quite fit […]
Why I Wrote a Dual-Narrative Novel
By Laura Bonazzoli In the summer of 2016, I drove from Maine to Massachusetts to visit my aunt. Although more than two years had passed since my mother’s death, I was struck by the freshness of my aunt’s grief. As I sat in her kitchen, she told me the familiar story of how their mother, […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Susan Breen
Merry A mother’s valiant efforts to bring her family the joy of Christmas go haywire when she finds herself haunted by the angry ghost of Charles Dickens. Merry Bingham used to love Christmas—until she started worrying all the time about family, money and death. The only thing that continues to bring her joy is reading […]
On Writing: Lucille Guarino
As far back as I can remember, I was a hobbyist writer. Way longer than I was an avid reader. I loved coming up with stories and experiencing a whole gamut of living through reading. But the genre that always seemed to stay with me—long after I finished a book—were the ones where the protagonists […]
From Messy Truths to Meaningful Fiction: Five Keys to Transforming Life into Story
Cynthia Morris Some of us, like me, prefer to lead with our intellect. Makes sense. We want to be taken seriously. Vulnerable in public? Pass! That may work in real life. But when I set out to write my second novel, Her Lisbon Colors, I discovered the very traits I’d hidden—my tender heart and emotional […]
Even the Most Beautiful Song Becomes Noise If You Never Leave the Room It’s Played In
By Amal Hdhili Some relationships start like a melody you didn’t know you’d been waiting for. The connection is instant, the laughter effortless, and the quiet moments together feel like enough. You discover comfort in each other’s presence—where the outside world fades and your little bubble becomes a sanctuary. Safe. Warm. Familiar. But love was […]
In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur
Karen Walrond, award-winning author of Radiant Rebellion and The Lightmaker’s Manifesto (featured on NPR’s Life Kit!), delivers a delightful jaunt in her upcoming book, In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur (Sept. 23). Walrond encourages readers to resist capitalist grind culture and experience joy in doing what they love — without the pressure of being excellent. Resist […]
Researching a Book in the Time of Covid, and What I Learned
By Pamela Toler One of the oddities of my career path as a writer of historical non-fiction is that I didn’t have the chance to do archival research for my first nine books. In some cases this was because I often had ridiculous deadlines, which did not leave time to hunker down in an archives […]
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