As we start the last month of the third quarter, my challenge is to help each of you, my characters, make sure your part of the story delivers to its year-end manuscript completion goals. This is a critical point in…
The Nobel Prize-winning playwright George Bernard Shaw said, “If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best take it out and teach it to dance.” M Shelly Conner’s book, everyman, does just that. Her protagonist, Eve…
Sometimes writing is a way of laying claim on the chaotic, of imposing a kind of fitful understanding onto something that defies order or remedy. Eleanor Henderson is the author of two acclaimed novels, Ten Thousand Saints and The Twelve-Mile Straight,…
Cheryl Bostrom’s SUGAR BIRDS is an immersive exploration of loss, redemption, and coming of age in the breathtaking Pacific Northwest wilderness. After accidentally setting a tragic fire, ten-year-old Aggie runs to the woods her father taught her to navigate, where…
Susan Schoenberger’s Liability of Love explores themes of class conflict, grief, trauma, and ultimately depicts how the stories we tell ourselves have the potential to both wreck us and save us. Kirkus Reviews calls it, “a keenly observed, compassionate, and…
Mona Mireles, the prematurely bitter and grumpy protagonist of Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ debut novel Mona at Sea, graduates from college with her dream job at an investment back all lined up. Her hard work has paid off. She’s crossed that…