How to Make a Beginning
It’s hard to start to write. No matter the number of chapters or scenes or even emails I’ve written, when I have a blank page in front of me, I stop in my tracks. I see half a dozen different…
It’s hard to start to write. No matter the number of chapters or scenes or even emails I’ve written, when I have a blank page in front of me, I stop in my tracks. I see half a dozen different…
At the Muse and the Marketplace conference a few days ago, someone said American publishers were looking for stories not filtered through the American lens. I almost laughed out loud. Well said, but it was a false statement. I wasn’t…
Last year I read a novel that was ruined (for me) by this: A family with adult children finds out that one of the kids, for some urgent business reason, needs $150,000 right away or something horrible will occur. It…
Oyinkan Braithwaite’s breathtaking novel, My Sister, the Serial Killer was published last November (Doubleday, 2018) and while the title caught my attention I picked it up because again and again I heard someone call it their favorite book of the…
Shobha Rao’s stunning novel, Girls Burn Brighter, is just out in paperback (Flatiron, 2018) and you should run, not walk, to your local bookstore and buy a copy. It was named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR…
Crystal King’s newest novel, The Chef’s Secret, is just out (Atria Books, 2019) and it is as delicious as her first novel, Feast of Sorrow (Atria Books, 2017). Already being called a “sumptuous buffet” and “perfectly paced,” King shines with…