The Solo Writing Retreat
Ah! The idea of one solid week of writing, and nothing but writing, kept me going for months. I had booked this week away back in June, just after returning from my annual four-day retreat with my writing group. My…
Category: Novels
Standing Room Only
Before Tuesday’s election results, I was thinking about how five million Chicago-area fans celebrating the Cubs’ World Series victory boded well for the future of this country. I started this piece after witnessing the Cubs’ historic win, and it made me…
YA Wednesday: Get Pumped For Finishing NaNoWriMo In Style, How-To Tips for NaNoWriMo,YA Novel About NaNoWriMo, 14 Published Novels Written During NaNoWriMo
NaNoWriMo has officially begun and not just for adults. Some teachers are even doing NaNoWriMo with their students. It’s pretty cool that trying to write a novel in a month has become a national tradition. I’m not starting a new…
Friday Feast: 10 Books Featuring Subversive Women, 10 Must-Reads for Donald Trump, on Receiving and Accepting Novel Feedback, That Uncomfortable Feeling When Writers Don’t Write, and What Happens When a Debut Author Won’t Join Social Media?
My Grandma Sue lived alone in the middle of a rice field in southern Missouri. The electricity would flicker if the wind blew too hard and the water smelled like lead. She stole all her dad’s savings and ran away…
Creating Art Without Envy
This summer I got to travel around Asia for two months with a dear old friend—a novelist and playwright, and my best reader. For weeks we’d looked forward to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the massive Hindu temple complex dedicated to…
To Writers, Especially White Ones
You are going to get it wrong. It is as fundamental to the craft as rejection, procrastination and gravity. A pursuit that requires you to put yourself into the heart and brain of another human being will lead you to…