A few pieces of good news today, all leading up to some additional news about my writing life that I’ll announce later this week: ♦ Living Arrangements was named a category finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. ♦ I will be heading to one of my favorite places — Portland, Oregon — for a week [...]

If you’ve read Room by Emma Donoghue, you surely couldn’t help but think of this novel when the escape of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight hit the news. Room, published in 2010, is told from the point of view of 5-year-old Jack, who lives with his long-imprisoned mother in a single room and [...]

To write is to talk to strangers. You want them to trust you. You might well begin by trusting them—by imagining for the reader an intelligence at least equal to the intelligence you imagine for yourself. No doubt you know some things the reader does not know (why else presume to write?) but it helps [...]

1. Ask this, not that. Here’s some advice to help guide audience members toward the better questions to ask during a reading. It covers everything from the dreaded “Where do you get your ideas?” to the more specific “How can you be a mother and still find time to write?” (As for that last question: [...]

1. I was recently discussing my possible future plans for my writing — and the uncertainty related to those plans — when a wise person told me: “There are never going to be any guarantees for you as a writer. The only guaranteed result you’ll find is if you stop writing right now and never [...]

» The biggest compliment I can give this book is how thoroughly unsettled it made me feel — like I didn’t quite have a grip on reality and I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. » Some lovely metaphors involving the balloon man. » Finally, at the end, she ends up taking off [...]

Happy Valentine’s Day. You’re a writer, so clearly you need some love advice, right? Well, you can start by turning to the love lessons learned in The Bell Jar, The Great Gatsby, Jane Eyre, and others. You’ll learn not to idealize your partner, to avoid manipulators, and that the problem person in the relationship just [...]

Consider yourself warned: I have officially joined the modern world at last. That’s right. I have an e-reader. Here’s a photo of me using my new Nook. This picture also proves that cats don’t care whether you’re reading a regular book or holding a little screen, so long as you make the with body heat [...]

Happy Friday. Now enjoy these Better Book Titles:  

1. First, huge congratulations and many bottles of champagne to our dear Averil, who just landed a two-book deal with Harlequin MIRA. I could see this type of good news coming ever since I started reading her blog. It’s well deserved, my friend. 2. I feel I should clarify my last post a bit. As [...]