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Inspiration on Collaboration from Chicago Writers Conference

A good writing conference energizes and inspires as well as providing new information, or at least old information in a fresh way.  Chicago Writers Conference, which wrapped up today, was a great writing conference.  Speakers were candid, generous and actually concerned, it seemed, with sharing information rather than gratifying their own egos.  While shattering dreams […]

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Soon to be Famous Author Project Nominates MHR!

I have been nominated as one of the Illinois Library Association’s Soon to be Famous Authors!Pictured above with my nominator, Larry D’Urso, Mount Prospect Public Library, at the Soon to be Famous Author Project Announcement Ceremony. Thank you, Larry, and the MPPL! Here’s the link to my remarks at the Illinois Library Association’s Soon to be […]

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A “know it all” approach to your novel

June 27, 2014 For two years now, we’ve been writing about crafting your first novel and I have insisted that you don’t need to know your whole story in order to begin.  This has worked for me through the process of writing a dozen novels, but recently I heard Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn, The Testament of […]

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Performing your writing? Practice makes perfect

April 25, 2014 One of the comforts of being a writer is getting to write. But as soon as you publish those carefully chosen words, you’re suddenly expected to become a speaker. Lawyers have the advantage in this regard of having developed their presentation skills, but courtroom drama and negotiating-table dramatics are slightly different arts […]

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