Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!
I am not a writer who yearns for a cabin in the woods for weeks at a time. Being away from my life for long periods does not fill me with creative joy. I wish it did. Just like I…
Category: Writing
An Interview with Rebecca Makkai, Author of The Hundred-Year House
Author Rebecca Makkai lives outside Chicago with her husband and two daughters. Described by Richard Russo as “a writer to watch, as sneakily ambitious as she is unpretentious,” her first novel, The Borrower, was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an…
One Dog at a Time
I got my first dog, Zoe, in 2012 at a time when I was trying to finish a draft of my novel in order to apply to the Incubator program. Zoe was a good dog and a very easy puppy….
Red Rover, Red Rover, Send My Next Novel Right Over!
My current novel revision ends in July. Full stop. Do not pass the revision mark again until the good lady (or lord, should it come to that) says so. Am I pleased? I am pleased! I know that revision doesn’t…
It’s All a Mystery to Me
“All great art has as its core a mystery. If the Mona Lisa didn’t have that mysterious smile, she’d just be another Italian broad.” — Tom Robbins On March 8, 2014, Malaysian airline flight 370 disappeared, and for weeks after I was…
Rejection Rituals
There are writers out there who wax elegantly about the subject of rejection, such as my lovely Novel Incubator instructor, Lisa Borders, in her wonderful post. Elegance is not my forte. And positivity quotes are positively the least helpful thing in…