Birthing Babies, Birthing Books
Once again, I find myself gestating two babies: my book and an actual human child, currently two weeks out from D-Day. This happened two years ago too, smack in the middle of the Novel Incubator. I went to class one…
Category: Novel Incubator
Getting to Know You: POV Lessons from Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem once said in an interview that he wrote early drafts of Motherless Brooklyn, a first-person novel from the POV of a character with Tourette’s, in third person. The interviewee was shocked. And in disbelief. But Lethem insisted he…
Writer Resolutions for 2015
At the end of 2013, I asked Dead Darlings contributors and Novel Incubator alums to share the best thing they did for themselves in the previous year. In 2014, two contributors published their debut novels, two contributors sold their novels,…
Personal Artifacts: Researching Your Own History
I was on the phone with my dad the other day, and just before we hung up I said, “Yalla, bye!” This was strange for a number of reasons. First, “Yalla, bye” is a weird phrase. Yalla means “let’s go”…
An interview with E.B. Moore, Author of An Unseemly Wife
E.B. Moore lives in a city loft, but writes her way back to farm life in Pennsylvania where she grew up. She retired as a metal sculptor in her fifties and hung her tools on the loft beams before looking…
Tunnel Syndrome
I’ve struggled recently with two different sorts of tunnel syndrome. The first type is affecting the nerves in my elbows and hands. My husband, not a doctor, says it’s carpal tunnel syndrome. Symptoms include numbness, tingling, stiffness and a sensation…