Consider your writing time a gift to yourself. Consider the writing process an opportunity to grow and discover something new about your story, your style, and your creative personality. Consider it a chance to have fun.
Category: writers on writing
Writing psychological thrillers- plus the pleasures of genre-bending
I recently sat down with Bookreporter to discuss writing and my new psychological thriller, The Marriage Pact. We talked about the inspiration for The Marriage Pact, why I love writing psychological thrillers and suspense, four primary rules of The Pact, collectivism gone awry, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, genre-bending, writing really scary scenes, and writing process.…Continue reading Writing psychological thrillers- plus the pleasures of genre-bending
Bleaker House by Nell Stevens – Loneliness & Creativity in the Falklands
Verdict: an unusual and utterly absorbing memoir, an apt examination of one young woman’s struggle to create in solitude In general, I think memoirs are best told by writers who have a few decades under their belts. Memoir by its very nature tends to veer toward navel-gazing; it takes a degree of intellectual rigor and self-depecration to…Continue reading Bleaker House by Nell Stevens – Loneliness & Creativity in the Falklands
Review of Dear Friend: From My Life I Write to You in Your Life, by Yiyun Li
In Dear Friend: From My Life I Write to You in Your Life, Yiyun Li offers a raw, heartbreaking exploration of the author’s ongoing struggle with suicide, the necessity of solitude, and a friendship that transcends age and nationality. What lingers after the last page is the intensity of the author’s relationship with William Trevor,…Continue reading Review of Dear Friend: From My Life I Write to You in Your Life, by Yiyun Li
7 Stories for Writers to Read & Study
If you want to be a writer, you have to be a reader first. Here are seven stories that I recommend to students in my online fiction writing class, MASTER THE SHORT STORY. The School, by Donald Barthelme “The School” is one of my favorites. A group of school children face one tragedy after another…Continue reading 7 Stories for Writers to Read & Study