On Rewriting

Here’s a tip for all aspiring authors: if you can survive rewriting your work, again and again, without collapse, without quitting, you will see your work published. Rewriting is often what separates the unpublished from the published. I attended The…

Killing my Patronus

If I had a patronus it would definitely be a bear. I know this because a bear I conjured up in mind—and wrote into my novel—crawled off the page and intervened in my real life. But yesterday, that bear died….

Friday Feast: Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators, Writing Tips from Tana French, 6 Tips for Writing outside Your Own Culture, Laura Albert on the Elena Ferrante Identity Reveal Controversy, and the Snarling Girl

I submitted something due tomorrow 20 minutes ago. I feel incredibly ahead of the game. I’m usually sweating it until one minute before the deadline. It only took four loads of laundry and multiple checks of social media to focus…

The Thrill of Discovery, The Agony of the Fact

I decided to write a historical novel because I wanted to get completely out of my day-to-day life and contemporary everything—terrorism, the failure of capitalism, modern marriage, childhood and adolescence, politics, racism, climate change, you name it. Did I have…