In Pursuit of the Perfect Logline
LOGLINE: A novelist must distill her story into a one-sentence logline, or she will fail to sell her book and will end up alone in a padded room. Anyone pitching a book can relate to the angst of writing a…
Category: Women Writers
Interview with Lisa Borders, Novel Teacher Extraordinaire
If you’ve taken a novel-related class at Boston’s Grub Street, it’s likely you’ve crossed paths with Lisa Borders. Author of The Fifty-First State and Cloud Cuckoo Land, Lisa developed Grub Street’s Novel in Progress classes, founded the Novel Generator, and…
An Interview with Kelly J. Ford, Author of Cottonmouths
Kelly J. Ford’s gripping debut novel, Cottonmouths, recounts protagonist Emily Skinner’s return to her small hometown in the Ozarks. Emily’s irresistible attraction to her former best friend and childhood crush Jody Monroe leads to danger – a meth lab on Jody’s…
Literary Landscaping
I was weeding around the shrubs in my yard this weekend, which gave me a lot of time to reflect on what matters. My answer: Nothing. That’s right. Nothing matters. Let me explain. Maybe you need a better idea of…
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,…
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…