Category: Novels

My Adventures in Photo Realism

For Valentine’s Day in 2009 my husband and I got tickets to a New Yorker event called “Love Is Strange” where Jeffrey Eugenides was going to speak about love and literature. That February, I was finishing my dissertation that included…

That Name Rings a Bell

Like a lot of writers, I have a little notebook where I jot down stuff that pops into my head. Sometimes it’s an idea or phrase. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a single word. For instance, the last note I…

Read and Reread

“For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.” Eudora Welty, On Writing I just did something I haven’t done in years. I read two novels in the span of two weeks. Joy! I fussed and…

10 Ways to Paint a Portrait With Words

I often struggle with describing my characters. Right now, I’m banging my head against a wall trying to describe a teenage boy who has visions as more than a blond hunk. This is all the more frustrating because my mother…