Crushed by the Crucible
So I did that thing, the very depressing one, where I pulled an old manuscript out of the files with the intention of fixing it. I was confident I knew the problem: it had to be the stakes. The reader…
Category: Books
YA Wednesday: What Teens Really Think, Feel, and Want You to Know
As someone whose teen years are miles away in the rear view mirror, I often find myself using that trite expression, “Back when I was a kid,” with my teenage children. Cue the eye rolling. No wonder. The time before…
Friday Feast: Book Publicist’s Advice for Debut Novelists, An Interview with A. Ironi Barrett, Quitting Your Day Job, A Heated Auction for a YA Novel, and Twitter Tips from a Literary Agent
It’s time for the Friday Feast! This week, we have an assorted menu of literary links, from publicity and Twitter advice, to publishing news and an interview with an author whose young Nigerian protagonist awakes the morning before a job…
An Interview with Michelle Hoover, Author of Bottomland
Building on her critically acclaimed debut novel The Quickening, Michelle Hoover’s gripping, brilliantly crafted new release, Bottomland, follows the Hess family’s struggle to stay together on the Iowa plains following the mysterious disappearance of two family members during the years…
Friday Feast: Speaking Out About the State of Diversity in Publishing, Working Class Literature, 5 Myths About Having an Agent, Character Agency, and Creative Writing Prompts When You Only Have 10 Minutes
I’ve taken to watching disaster movies on Saturday nights because there’s something satisfying about watching Mother Nature wipe out humanity when we’ve been so bad. This is a result of watching too many political debates and town halls and being…
An Interview with Dawn Tripp, author of Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe
Dawn Tripp is a favorite among Boston-area writers and readers — and for good reason. I first met her at the Boston Book Festival, where I moderated a fiction panel we quickly dubbed “Three Blondes and a Brit.” There we…