Crushed by the Crucible
So I did that thing, the very depressing one, where I pulled an old manuscript out of the files with the intention of fixing it. I was confident I knew the problem: it had to be the stakes. The reader…
Category: Novels
Patron Saints for Writers
In case you missed it—and I did—January 24th was the feast day for Saint Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers and journalists. Our guy trudged around the snowy Swiss landscape trying to win back Catholics lost to Calvinism. He…
An Interview with Michelle Hoover, Author of Bottomland
Building on her critically acclaimed debut novel The Quickening, Michelle Hoover’s gripping, brilliantly crafted new release, Bottomland, follows the Hess family’s struggle to stay together on the Iowa plains following the mysterious disappearance of two family members during the years…
An Introverted Writer’s Take on Confidence
Ah, writers. We spend countless hours with ourselves in our heads, surrounded by books, pens, and papers. The only warm-blooded thing in the room is a dog or cat, maybe a bird or a fish. Any person in the room…
YA Wednesday: Emotional Life of Boys, Dudes Who Read YA, YA Books for Boys, @broodingYAhero
Two of my favorite YA novels, The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp and the Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, are written by men about boys in trouble. I feel guilty admitting this given that I’m a woman…
An Interview with Dawn Tripp, author of Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe
Dawn Tripp is a favorite among Boston-area writers and readers — and for good reason. I first met her at the Boston Book Festival, where I moderated a fiction panel we quickly dubbed “Three Blondes and a Brit.” There we…