When I was eleven years old, I discovered a fantasy series by way of our library’s bookmobile that sparked my imagination like nothing I had read before. That series began my love affair with dragons, magic, flawed heroes, complex villains and most of all, books. I found solace in my books during the tough times […]
I write for so many reasons. First, I write because no one will pay me to read and eat Doritos, which would probably be the perfect job. I write because I was once a teen who needed to escape into stories. I grew up poor in a little town, but books showed me all different kinds of […]
I began writing because I wanted to be a “Writer.” Not, initially, for the love of story or words or character, or the rich whiff of ink and paper, or the romantic conviction that I had anything of value to say, but because I became infatuated at an early age with the images of “Writers” […]
People often ask, and I ask myself on a daily basis, why I have spent more than six decades writing novels, short stories, essays, poems, plays and occasional reportage, continuing to ply this obsession into the cusp of my dotage. My answer to others and especially to myself never seems quite adequate. Whether I take […]
In 2014 a middle-aged mother of two got laid off after twenty-four years with the same retail company and was suddenly unemployed. At the same time, she was just finishing up her first book—which she started as a self-challenge. Suddenly, that book became so much more than a little project. She researched self-publishing, and released […]
I’ve taught creative writing courses for a number of years at several schools like NYU, and I always told my students what writing mistakes they should avoid. Here is a list of 3 writing mistakes that I have come across most often in my career. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a novice or a pro, […]
Sarah and Ryan in 2002 are our first born grandchildren. They live about an hour and a half from us. When they were little we would make the trip to pick them up knowing what was going to transpire. TEARS! Sarah and Ryan loved our German Shepherd, Buddy, and he loved them. So I began […]
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