Creative Symbiosis
Before I wrote regularly, I made art. My mother was an artist and art teacher, so I guess it was in my DNA. As a child, I drew stories — graphic novels without written words. As a young adult, I…
Before I wrote regularly, I made art. My mother was an artist and art teacher, so I guess it was in my DNA. As a child, I drew stories — graphic novels without written words. As a young adult, I…
Some writers keep returning to the story they have to tell until they get it right. When I started my YA novel Half in Love with Death (Merit Press – December 2015), I’d already abandoned two novels about a young…
There are many versions of Cinderella. I’m fond of the Brothers Grimm version, which includes severed toes and heels and an army of birds who peck out eyeballs. After long hours of toil and trouble, Cinderella weeps and prays at the tree growing on…
Life happens. And sometimes life happens in the big middle of your best writerly intentions. A work project explodes and takes all your spare time with it. A family crisis turns you inside out emotionally. Your kid finally makes that traveling hockey…
My primary association with Friday the 13th — as is the case for many of us, I suspect — is Jason Voorhees. But there are also those who are superstitious about making travel plans on this unluckiest of Fridays. Many…
How Not to Write I used to keep a book on my shelf to remind myself how not to write. The book, call it Stricken, consisted of a collection of essays on the author’s recent widowhood. She had written it perhaps…