Category: Novels

On Writing Groups

Welcome to 2017, a year in which I am determined to note the big and little things for which I am grateful. I need to do something to combat the shadow of despair that has been with me since Election…

Hello, First Draft, My Old Friend

So, First Draft, we meet again. I just finished your brother a few weeks ago and stuck him in a (virtual) drawer. Don’t worry. You’re definitely meeting the same fate. Oh, stop screaming. Doesn’t the certainty of what’s going to…

Taking a Lesson from Moonlight

A few weeks ago, when I walked out of the theater after seeing Moonlight, I experienced a feeling akin to what I felt three days ago when I closed the cover of Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and sat back and…

‘Tis the Season for Discipline

Fortunate are the writers whose first germ of a novel is a plotline, a concept, a scene, or a theme – ideas that provide a starting point, the bare bones, a guide. Then there’s me. Having grown up in Wisconsin with…