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In honor of Women’s Day, I have compiled a list of my some of my favorite female authors. It’s a long list, and the truth is, we need more than just one day of the year to honor achievements by women. How about we just take the next century? It would be a start inContinue Reading
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A few weeks ago, I posted a creative writing prompt using myths, legends, or fairytales. I did the prompt myself, and the result is my flash fiction piece, “Fish(er)man”, which is below. It is also a companion piece to another flash piece I wrote last fall, “Swim Challenge”. The characters are different, but the setting, Rainy Lake,Continue Reading
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The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides, was a huge bestseller and got great critical reviews after its 2019 release. Michaelides, who was a first-time novelist, created a suspenseful story with a shocking twist, that stemmed from confusing the reader when it comes to POV and tense. It’s the sort of novel where after you’re doneContinue Reading
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I have been writing a lot of short fiction lately. I’ve also been reading and studying short fiction, as that’s a major focus of the grad program I’m in. The other day, I was looking for online journals where I could submit my short fiction, and read their guidelines. One place insisted that shortContinue Reading
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Lucia Berlin was a brilliant but mostly unappreciated author of short fiction. According to The Guardian, Berlin focused on working class jobs in her stories, as she was from a scrappy working class background herself. At one time, she had a job as an emergency room nurse. That is not surprising, as her flash fictionContinue Reading
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Use this video that explains paradox, gives examples, and provides a writing prompt as a warmup activity for your students, or to spur your own creativity. Enjoy!
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I’m celebrating! I just finished my first draft of latest novel, MYSTERIES AND MARTINIS. (Last word = fly) Because the online tools I have make it so easy, I composed a fantasy cover & ad. But now the real work begins. On to revisions, queries, and putting myself out there!
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The Lies We Told is the first novel I’ve read by Camilla Way. Now that I know about her, I will be looking up her other three novels. Because, The Lies We Told is a twisty, suspenseful novel that’s full of surprises throughout, and with a huge surprise at the end that I never saw coming. There areContinue Reading
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“I don’t understand it any more than you do, but one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to understand things for them to be.” – Madeleine L’Engle My first experience with A Wrinkle in Time, was in fourth grade, when our teacher read it aloud to us. The part where Meg uses her love forContinue Reading
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Lately, I have come to a new realization: I need to update my list of favorite authors to include Karen McManus. The Cousins is the third book by her I have thoroughly enjoyed. The first was One of Us is Lying, which I read on my Kindle. The second was Two Can Keep a SecretContinue Reading
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In “Brownies,” from Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer relays a tale that is based on either a lie or a misconception, depending upon how you want to look at it. The members of an all Black Brownie troop insist they heard a member from an all White Brownie troop use the “N” word. The storyContinue Reading
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You Can’t Catch Me is about a woman named Jessica Williams. No – scratch that – it’s about THREE women named Jessica Williams, and several other Jessica Williams also make an appearance. But only one Jessica narrates the story, and that story is original and compelling. When the book begins, Jessica has just lostContinue Reading
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Many fiction writers say that a story’s ending is the most difficult part to write. Below are 10 possible ending lines for a piece of fiction. Pick one, adjust it however works best for you, and then write a story with those words as the closing. We had come so far, but there was yetContinue Reading
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One thing I’ve learned from years of self-publishing my novels, is that selling books is HARD, especially if you don’t have a big name publisher, like Random House or Penguin, to display on your cover. When Kindle Press published The Standout, I thought I had it made. An Amazon publisher was publishing my book! ItContinue Reading
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“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” – Joyce Carol Oates We’re all allowed a little self-indulgence on our birthdays, right? I decided to treat myself and created the image above, with my most recently published novel alongside a quote from the literaryContinue Reading
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Writing Prompt: Use a legend, myth, or fairytale as a starting point, and write your own story where you try any or all of the following: change the time/location of the story, switch the genders of the main characters, write it only in dialogue, write it without any dialogue, write the entire thing in oneContinue Reading
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In Neddy, John Cheever created a truly delusional man who suffers from selective amnesia while he imagines himself to be great. Neddy lives in what should be a suburban paradise, but in the superficial McCarthy-era world of deceit, materialism, and broken promises, nothing is as Neddy wants to believe it is. Even the weather eludesContinue Reading
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“I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman.” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” This story is about a woman who is trapped by society, her marriage, and her own mental illness. She is alsoContinue Reading
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Tell Me Everything, by Cambria Brockman, is a riveting novel that can fairly be compared to Donna Tartt’s highly esteemed The Secret History. The protagonist of Tell Me Everything, Malin, goes to college in New England. It’s not quite Ivy League, but it’s elite and attracts a certain kind of accomplished of student, like the wealthyContinue Reading
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It’s unusual for me to read nonfiction, but I was drawn to Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill for several reasons. I’d already watched Farrow v. Allen and Untouchable, both of which are documentaries on HBO, and which deal with sexual abuse and abuse of power, focusing on the allegations against Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein, respectively. After watching both I cameContinue Reading
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