Some great questions came my way from a recent book club meeting, so I thought I'd share them with everybody.  Enjoy!

I must say I was pleased as punch with all the yahoos over my last post about taking an unpaid year off from my job to write.   And I'm late posting this particular update because I've started doing exactly that--writing.  I haven't felt this content in year/… Read full post »

So I finally did it.  I told my boss I needed a year off from my teaching job at Boston University in order to turn in a solid draft of a my next novel to my agent.  Goal:  last day of August 2012 (when I turn forty). … Read full post »

The last of my four part series on plotting, fresh from notes from my "Plotting the Novel" seminar at Boston's Grub Street.  Grub Street is truly leading the way in teaching the novel, and you can find out more about their courses and other offerings at www.grubstreet.org.  The course has f/… Read full post »

The third installment of notes from my "Plotting the Novel" seminar at Boston's Grub Street (find out more about their courses and other offerings at www.grubstreet.org).  The course has four parts:  Yearning, The Launch, Conflict, and Consequences. I wi/… Read full post »

This is the second installment of notes from my "Plotting the Novel" seminar at Boston's Grub Street. Grub Street is truly leading the way in teaching the novel, and you can find out more about their courses and other offerings at www.grubstreet.org.  The course has four parts:  Yearning, T/… Read full post »

Hi Folks.  Here are some notes from my "Plotting the Novel" seminar at Boston's Grub Street.  Grub Street is truly leading the way in teaching the novel, and you can find out more about their courses and other offerings at www.grubstreet.org.  The course has/… Read full post »

This article originally appeared in the January 2011 issue of the Other Press Newsletter.  

Still glowing from my Iowa City appearance at Prairie Lights, I drove two hours between corn silos to the town of Oskaloosa, IA, population 11,000, with a two-block downtown,/… Read full post »

My last list of the year (I promise).  I've had plenty of book groups asking me for recommendations, so here they are.  In truth, with all the skirmishes lately over the New York Times and how many books by women are reviewed, sold, or placed on the/… Read full post »

Here are some of my favorites published this year, 29 titles in all from short stories to novels, just in time for the frantic shopping season.  All the books are available on the shelves or by order at your local bookstore, from all the online retailers (including/… Read full post »

(This post originally appeared on Rebecca Rasmussen's wonderful site for authors and writers:  thebirdsisters.blogspot.com.  Her first novel, The Bird Sisters, is due out in April 2011.)

More than any other genre, I have long believed that the best fiction asks it… Read full post »

I am a very goal-oriented writer.  Since I run my life on an academic schedule, I set deadlines for the end of December, April, and August.  But in truth one's goals don't always take into consideration one's limitations, especially when a writer is young.  Through high school and coll/… Read full post »

Struck dumb in the middle of a recent Q&A session--this halfway through my two-week, every-night Midwestern book tour and feeling somewhat out-of-sorts with a bad stomach in a small Minnesota town--a bookstore owner raised his hand at the back of the room a/… Read full post »

To begin with, let me say that I don't necessarily consider myself A Writer, though I try my best.  Despite my recent novel publication, when I sit at my computer I suffer the same anxieties of lowliness, stupidity, sniffling, and bad page days as I did before. … Read full post »

I held readings in 19 cities in ten states, driving a total of 2,232 miles and flying more than 6,582 miles.  I'm currently sitting in my robe at the window of my apartment on a bright afternoon and I refuse to shower, change into acceptable clothes, or/… Read full post »

Bread Loaf is considered one of the top writing conferences in the country, if not the world, isolated as it is in Vermont's hills and farm land without cell phone reception but plenty of talk.  I've been lucky to attend four times, first as a paying contributor/… Read full post »

(Still traveling!  This blog was originally published on the site www.hercircleezine.com, a great site for women writers.  I hope you check it out.)

What is most remarkable about the fifteen pages of my great-grandmother's journal--the same that inspired my novel, The Quickening--is the fa/… Read full post »

(While I'm traveling for the book, I have little time to keep my blog updated.  (Apologies!)  Here's a "new-to-you" entry that was published as an original essay on the great Powells.com.  Go to www.powells.com/blog/?p=20826 to take a look.)

Listen to the voices Studs Terkel collec… Read full post »

(This post was originally published on the great Memorious Magazine Blog.  Go to memoriousmag.wordpress.com)

I doubt William Gass will ever allow himself to be forgotten, but there are still far too many readers out there who haven't opened the above story collection only to find themselves/… Read full post »

(This entry was originally published on Meg Waite Clayton's great blog, First Books.  Go to megwaiteclayton.com/1stbooks)

I've taught repeated courses for beginning novelists at Boston's Grub Street, and one of the first things I do to smooth the brow of all those gaunt, anxious, near heart-/… Read full post »

And the second best way to escape pre-publication anxiety (see previous post)?  Try to solve everyone else's problems, the same problems I once had and will have again when I'm neck deep in another novel.  (Right now, I'm only up to my toes.)

So forgive me:  Having just recovered from/… Read full post »

As we watch in horror as blundering BP sits on its hands while wildlife suffocates in the never-ending Gulf of Mexico spill, there's a perhaps equal menace that occurs every summer in the same waters--a "vast tomb containing millions of bottom-dwelling sea creatures," (World Resources Institute)--nam… Read full post »

Who could possibly disagree that the best place to go to escape pre-publication book anxiety is Siberia? 

 

It takes some long hours in the traveling seat:  a 10-hour flight to Moscow, a 6-hour puddle-jumper to Irkutsk, and a five-hour, rambling, suicide-mission of a cab ride in an/… Read full post »

(This blog was initially published at StrictlyWriting.Blogspot.com. A great writing blog!)

I've been teaching fiction writing for fourteen years, moving from the short story to the novel as my own work meandered nervously from short to long. What I return to again and again, what I find most helpful t… Read full post »