Project Manage Your Novel to Done
I recently had the good fortune (trying to keep it positive) to find myself without a job. After the shock of being unemployed was over, I became grateful for the time off. I decided to take the summer and work…
Category: The Writing Life
Friday Feast: Publisher P&Ls, Depressing Graphs, Big Book List, and Literary Hotspots of America
What do you mean editors don’t think they can sell the epic, decade-spanning horror slash literary mashup of the painting my Grandma found in Albuquerque that carried the soul of a young girl who died in a fire and haunted…
Making Lemonade: Turning Bad Juju into Good Writing
Bad juju comes to most of us, and sometimes it comes all at once and sometimes it is a staccato of bad news, one thing, another thing, another thing, another. My response to trouble used to be assume professional stance at…
I’ll Have What She’s Having: The Role of Food as a Writing Enhancer
I am writing this blog entry while on vacation. So, naturally I am thinking about my next meal. When we consider food and its role in stories, food-themed movies come to mind—Babette’s Feast, Big Night, Chocolat, Julie and Julia, and…
My Adventures in Photo Realism
For Valentine’s Day in 2009 my husband and I got tickets to a New Yorker event called “Love Is Strange” where Jeffrey Eugenides was going to speak about love and literature. That February, I was finishing my dissertation that included…
Friday Feast: Queries, Failure, Writing, Stories That Last, and Massholes
‘Masshole’ is now officially a word, not just the word I yell at the drivers who nearly run me over in the crosswalk. Much like being a pedestrian in Boston, the publishing path is full of hazards, even when you…