On Sunday, I was given the opportunity to perform my writing aloud for Writers Read at The Cell theater in New York City. It was a fantastic experience. Reading my work aloud felt both new and not-new; while I’ve never read my writing for a paying audience (and live Facebook/podcast viewers), I’ve had practice reading for […]
Craft
Novel Intro: The Blizzard of 1888
One of my goals this summer, besides finishing the draft of my next historical novel, is to blog about it. I got to the next phase of my nonfiction project this past week by launching the website (I’ll be writing about and promoting that in the next post), so I’m starting to shift my Words From […]
Readers in Love with Characters
Last week was my husband’s and my seventh wedding anniversary; we’ve been a couple for almost 15 years total. A friend of mine asked if we were happily married, and when I said yes, she asked what our secret was. I thought for a few minutes and told her that there were a few. One […]
Reading Aloud
One of the best things about the writer’s retreat I attended last weekend was the mandate that all writing done in the kula must be read aloud. (You could technically refuse for a round or two, but it’s strongly discouraged.) It’s a scary feeling, having to read something you’ve written, and even scarier when it […]
Why (And How) I’m DIY-ing my MFA
Intro: This post is inspired by one of my favorite writers, Gabriela Pereira, “instigator” of DIY MFA. Besides writing the column “Be Well, Write Well” for DIY MFA, I’ve also agreed to be a part of the team helping to promote the new DIY MFA book coming out this summer! I’m super-excited to read it. […]
My Character Changed Course: Rose and Her Father
I’ve been working on a short story inspired by one of the old Life magazines I picked up at an antique mart earlier this month. It’s about a girl named Rose starting a new school in the early 1950s, just after her father was killed in Korea and her mother was forced to join the […]