On Writing Groups
Welcome to 2017, a year in which I am determined to note the big and little things for which I am grateful. I need to do something to combat the shadow of despair that has been with me since Election…
Category: Books
An Interview with Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs To You
Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, it was named a best book of…
YA Wednesday: Write A Successful 1st Draft (Without Stabbing Yourself In The Eye With a Spork), The Greatest Lesson I Learned in Writing This Year, Tropes to Avoid, Diverse Books to Look Forward to in 2017
The New Years resolution at the top of my list is to finish The Black Sea, my novel in progress. And not just to finish it but to wrap it up in two to three months. Admittedly some of my…
In the Final Hours
I had written twenty, maybe thirty, pages of my first draft when I had the idea of setting the climax at a theme party. I thought it would be fun to put my characters into costumes and get them in…
Taking a Lesson from Moonlight
A few weeks ago, when I walked out of the theater after seeing Moonlight, I experienced a feeling akin to what I felt three days ago when I closed the cover of Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and sat back and…
‘Tis the Season for Discipline
Fortunate are the writers whose first germ of a novel is a plotline, a concept, a scene, or a theme – ideas that provide a starting point, the bare bones, a guide. Then there’s me. Having grown up in Wisconsin with…