Category: On Writing
Authors Interviewing Characters: Mary Fleming
CIVILISATION FRANÇAISE When recent college graduate Lily Owens enrolls in the Civilisation Française course at the Sorbonne in 1982, she hopes to put a difficult childhood behind her and to find direction for adulthood. She moves into an historic mansion on the place des Vosges where her job is helping elderly, half-blind Amenia Quinon, another ex-pat American. Unbeknownst to […]
Making the Personal Universal: 5 Ways to Help your Narrative Resonate with a Wider Audience
By Gina DeMillo Wagner When I was writing my memoir, Forces of Nature, I knew I had to do more than describe my family dynamics or chronicle the events of my life. I wanted to find points of connection with my future readers. I needed to figure out how my story was actually everyone’s story. […]
Vulnerability in Your Writing and Why it Matters
by Marina DelVecchio After reading Unsexed: Memoirs of a Prostitute’s Daughter, a friend told me I was brave to write it, followed by, “Don’t you feel vulnerable, writing about your life?” Many conversations I have had with women in the past few years have brought up similar issues with truth-telling: how much of our truth […]
My Transformation from Blogger to Author
By Rachel Valencourt I’ve always been a bit of a book nerd. Back in my journalism school days, I was convinced I’d end up as a writer. But you know how life goes—one minute you’re dreaming big, and the next, you’re just trying to juggle the work-life balance while wondering if you remembered to feed […]
How I Wrote We Are Family by Louise Walters
Like all my novels, it’s rather difficult to describe how I wrote We Are Family. I don’t actually remember writing much of it… sometimes my novels just seem to appear, to grow… 20,000 words… 40,000 words… I do remember how this one started, though. Circa 2007: I was taking a creative writing course as part […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Kay Stephens
DAUGHTER OF THE LOST When the freshman party ends, the sophomore hangover hits. Trinity Tachel has no use for society’s rules. Not after the New Orleans police failed to investigate the murder of her sex-worker mother. Not after she was abandoned to the Louisiana foster care system as a child. And certainly not after fighting […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Sarah Lariviere
Sarah Lariviere, Riot Act (Knopf / Random House, July 16, 2024) Sarah Lariviere’s debut novel, The Bad Kid, was an Edgar Award finalist. In the first book in her new YA series, Riot Act (Knopf / Random House, July 2024), an alternative history set in 1991 in an authoritarian America, theater kids in central Illinois […]
THE CURSE OF THE FLORES WOMEN by Angélica Lopes: Excerpt
THE CURSE OF THE FLORES WOMEN by Angélica Lopes translated by Zoë Perry In this haunting novel about the enduring bonds of womanhood, a young girl weaves together the truth behind her family history and the secrets that resonate through generations. Eighteen-year-old Alice Ribeiro is constantly fighting—against the status quo, female oppression in Brazil, and […]
Why I Wrote The Die
By Jude Berman It was the second Tuesday of November 2016. I was on a plane to Kauai, off to enjoy some R&R, having worked long days on the leadership team for HRC’s call center in the Bay Area. This was our celebratory moment, our time to feel the satisfaction—and relief—of a hard-earned victory. Except it […]
Novels Featuring Nature from a Feminine Perspective Are Essential for Our Times
There’s a long literary tradition of writing about natural and rural places. Many of the most well-known nature writers (Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Edward Abbey) wrote about nature and landscapes in ways that focused on a separation between pristine wilderness and human beings. Their writing conveys a feeling that the natural world is compromised […]
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