Heard a fascinating lecture on memory in novels by Fred Shafer at Off Campus Writers Workshop last week. It was the second in a four part series, and Fred aims to replace “backstory” with “memory.” Backstory is factual and provides needed information in summary; a memory is dramatic and specific and laden with emotion. He […]
Just got back from the most beautiful day of golf ever. Bill and I played in The Night Ministry’s annual outing, at Kemper Lakes, home of the 1989 PGA Championship. What a beautiful course….plus I played well. Felt very privileged all day, and, of course, reminded of the superb work done by The Night Ministry […]
I write fiction that aspires to be literary, meaning that it’s well-written in terms of vocabulary and style, but not high literary, meaning its fairly accessible to a person of average education and intelligence, but some of both is required. My agent has called it “women’s fiction” because she thinks it is the kind of […]
Here’s the link to an interview with my literary agent, April Eberhardt, a real advocate for authors and a “literary change agent.” She’s the one who encouraged me to sign with She Writes Press for the publication of Warming Up this fall.
In January, 2012, I repriced the Kindle edition of Courting Kathleen Hannigan to the oh-so-trendy 99 cents and got a great bump in sales—up to 11 from the 4 the month before and 11 for all of 2011. Well, ok, this is a “backlist” book, having first been published in paperback in 2007 (three quarters […]
All writers know that if you pay an editor to review your manuscript, they’ll earn their fee and then some. At the suggestion of my agent, I recently solicited the feedback of a “developmental editor” who lacerated 25 pages at a cost of $200. She says she read 50, and she was confident I’d get […]
Try rhymezone.com. It’s absolutely essential if you want to write rhyming poetry with any hope of avoiding the obvious. Be careful, though — desperate use of rhymezone may cause groans. Also, thesaurus.com offers a “word of the day” and fun facts, like the medical word for sunburn, “erythema solare,” and word games employing techniques magicians […]
August 17, 2012 Lawyers make good writers because we’ve learned to be careful with words. To us, words have both a precise and a nuanced meaning, not just a Black’s definition, but also an entire history of consequences and implications, as recorded in volumes of precedent. Words are powerful. Words are the tools of […]
Here’s the announcement from She Writes Press about Warming Up
Just pushed the “publish” button on a 193 page paperback, pferfect bound history of Lawyers for the Creative Arts called “LCA: The First Forty Years.” I spent some time going through the existing minutes of this nonprofit legal services organization which provides pro bono services to emerging artists and arts organizations. Found the names of […]
