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Success
Recently, I learned through a fellow author’s Facebook post that my latest novel In the Fall They Leave has been selected as one of twelve Finalists in the category of Historical Fiction for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.
Into the Mists: Historical Fiction
It’s October 1901, and you’re a fifty-two-year-old writer from Maine who has garnered praise and even fame for your “local color” novella, novels, and short stories. But something intriguing causes you to deviate from “local color” realism, and you set off into the mists of history and return with a historical novel called The Tory Lover.
Writer’s Date—Part 2
Yo-Yo Ma and Cats to the Rescue
Seventeen hours into my unexpected “writer’s date,” I found myself in a world of nearly non-stop noise. The dinging of call buttons long after they were probably answered; the aforementioned Laugher at the desk having a blast amid conversations galore; and on my roommate’s TV, the Michigan-Penn State game accompanied by crowd noise I tried to transform into ocean sounds.
Writer’s Date—Part 1
Yo-Yo Ma and Cats to the Rescue
Some years ago, I came across a bit of advice for writers: take yourself on a writer’s date every so often. Go somewhere in your area where you haven’t been before. Get out of your study, away from your screen, and see what you can see—and experience.
The Way of a Writer—Part III
In his office at the university John sat hunched over my manuscript, breathing clouds of tobacco smoke over the words. In one hand his pipe, in the other a pencil. Every so often he jotted something in the margin. It was like sitting in a dentist’s chair and being...
The Way of a Writer—Part II
Three weeks after that dinner, John was still trying to bolster me up—this time after my novel was rejected on its first trip out and another long piece of fiction still wasn’t coming right after two years of work. “I know,” he said, “how hard it is being a writer. ...
The Way of a Writer—Part I
“Gardner here.” A British accent, it seemed. A soft, yet I’m-busy-what-is-it? voice. I almost hung up. I’d been trying all week to reach him but had gotten only an empty burring ring from some outmoded phone system. Now this—John Gardner answering on the second...
