When You Want to Burn Your Novel Draft
I don’t even want to look at my novel draft. I want to burn it and watch the pieces float away and disappear forever. My characters are screaming at me, and I am ignoring them. The good news, I suppose,…
Category: Novels
An Interview with Jeanne Blasberg, author of Eden
A sweeping family saga, Eden chronicles four generations of Meister Fitzpatrick women from 1915 to 2000. The book centers on an extraordinary summer home aptly named after the Biblical paradise. As the novel opens, the family matriarch, Becca, is faced…
Random Thoughts of a Debut Author on the Precipice of Publication
Last Thursday, I had a total breakdown in the Harvard Square post office. I was in the process of writing a message to my dad in my debut novel, Cottonmouths, which I was about to mail to him. This isn’t out…
An Interview with Lauren Grodstein, Author of Our Short History
Lauren Grodstein’s latest novel, Our Short History, takes the form of a memoir written by a dying mother to her son. Things become complicated when her son’s father, who was not aware that he had a son, comes back into…
Confessions of a Non-Voracious Reader
Standard advice to novelists is to read a lot. Of course, it would be ironic to find a writer who does not like to read. It’s the “a lot” where I get hung up. Unlike many of my writing colleagues,…
An Interview with Pamela Wechsler, author of The Graves
Pamela Wechsler’s new novel The Graves, the second in the Abby Endicott series, was published on May 2. It has garnered advance praise from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, with the latter writing: “Catnip for readers attached to Boston, believably…