When I first started taking writing classes, my friends would ask what they were like. I would explain in a lighthearted voice that the classes were centered around the discussion of someone’s work – the good, the bad, the indifferent….
I am not a writer who yearns for a cabin in the woods for weeks at a time. Being away from my life for long periods does not fill me with creative joy. I wish it did. Just like I…
Author Rebecca Makkai lives outside Chicago with her husband and two daughters. Described by Richard Russo as “a writer to watch, as sneakily ambitious as she is unpretentious,” her first novel, The Borrower, was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an…
I got my first dog, Zoe, in 2012 at a time when I was trying to finish a draft of my novel in order to apply to the Incubator program. Zoe was a good dog and a very easy puppy….
My current novel revision ends in July. Full stop. Do not pass the revision mark again until the good lady (or lord, should it come to that) says so. Am I pleased? I am pleased! I know that revision doesn’t…
“All great art has as its core a mystery. If the Mona Lisa didn’t have that mysterious smile, she’d just be another Italian broad.” — Tom Robbins On March 8, 2014, Malaysian airline flight 370 disappeared, and for weeks after I was…