Ambushed by Beauty
The members of my writing critique group comment on my manuscript. That’s what they’re there for: to offer suggestions, to help steer me in the right direction and to give me their gut reaction to my work. Most of the…
Category: Women Writers
For the Not-so-Brave Girls
When I was a girl, my literary idols were Anne Shirley, Jo March, and Lyra Belacqua. They were imaginative. They flouted convention. They were lovably outspoken. They always stood up for what they believed in, even when their convictions were…
Author Interview with Elizabeth Poliner
Centered around what happens to one family during the summer of 1948, Elizabeth Poliner’s first novel, As Close to Us as Breathing, is a story of loss—whether sudden or creeping—and of memories layered in time. Narrator Molly sifts through mid-life…
An Interview with Juliette Fay, author of The Tumbling Turner Sisters
Juliette Fay’s fourth book, The Tumbling Turner Sisters, is the story of four girls who try their hand as an acrobatic act in 1919 vaudeville, in an effort to save their poverty stricken family (Gallery Books 2016). Ultimately it is a…
So, Tell Me About This Novel You’re Writing!
I’m at a dinner party. My partner gestures to me and says to the man we’re making small talk with: “Rose is a writer. In fact, she’s writing a novel!” “Well, isn’t that something!” he begins. I take a sip…
Through the Eyes of an Antagonist
My farm is a novel that writes itself over and over, year after year, always with a similar story arc: I plant, I tend, things go wrong, bugs invade. I fend off crows and raccoons. I pray for rain. I…