Is Our Writing Better Off Dead?
Do you remember that John Cusack movie from the 80s Better Off Dead? It was a humorous take on a traumatic time in a teen boy’s life. His girl dumped him for the popular boy, and he was left rudderless…
Category: The Writing Life
Writer 911: What’s Your Emergency?
This past week I’ve heard from a lot of writer friends who are having a tough time, mostly with their writing. As one friend put it, “hard to write with all this treason.” It got me to imagining a 911-type…
Interview with Madeline Miller, Author of Circe
Madeline Miller is the author of The Song of Achilles (Ecco, 2012), a novel that won the Orange Prize for Fiction and had me hooked from page one. On the surface it was a retelling of the famous warrior’s life,…
11 Writing Tips for Poor People
I appreciate writing tips from fellow writers. I love seeing how other people function and how they hope their successful patterns might be successful for someone else. But while the bulk of the advice out there is helpful, meaningful, and…
How the Pied Piper of Tucson Led Me to My Story
When I started my YA thriller Half in Love with Death, I’d already abandoned two novels about a young girl who falls in love with a man who may be a murderer. Every time I tried to write it I…
Time, Time, Time: What Have I Done?
In real life, I am generally good with time. I meet deadlines. I show up Canadian punctual (ten minutes early) to events. And I am usually aware of the date and time thanks to that job I have at MIT,…