Just a quick note about two new personal essays that have been accepted by publications. My very short flash essay “Swallow” has been published in the online literary journal pioneertown. You can read the essay here (my bio is longer…
Some Publication News
First things first: I hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and well during these challenging times. The light appears to be at the end of the tunnel. Let’s keep on keepin’ on until we all get through this together.…
My Answer When an Editor Asks if I’m Open to Suggestions
Seven months ago I sent a flash piece I wrote to a literary journal. I wrote it during a weekend writing workshop with the wonderful group Bending Genres. Today I got a note from the editors saying they really like…
Website Kerfuffle – Back to the Future
It appears that GoDaddy.com did some royal messing up of my website. It’s as if I’ve gone back in time; what you’re seeing is a year-old version without any of the blog posts or content I uploaded since the fall…
Writers in the Trenches: Novelist Joan Schweighardt, a “master of historical fiction”
In today’s Writers in the Trenches interview, we tackle a genre we haven’t discussed before in detail – historical fiction. Joan Schweighardt’s new novel, Gifts for the Dead, takes place in the early 20th century in Hoboken, NJ. It’s the…
Writers in the Trenches: Poet Alison Stone Talks Two New Books
In one of her answers to my questions below, poet Alison Stone talks about poems having “two images or stories that play off each other and add up to more than the sum of the parts.” In a funny way, our…
Book 2 in the Stray Cat Stories Children’s Book Series is On the Way…
My amazing illustrator, Laurel McKinstry Petersen, is working hard on some beautiful illustrations for TRIBBS: THE HANDSOME CAT (Based on a True Story). We’re working hard to try to get this book in your child’s hands by the holidays! I’ll…
When You Have to Leave to Come Back: Honoring My Own Voice
The early mornings are cooling off in Boston. For a time in July it was too hot to sit out behind our house with a cup of hot coffee in the mornings. That’s changing now; I can enjoy a little…
New Interview with Five Directions Press
Many thanks to Five Directions Press and Joan Schweighardt for publishing a new interview with me in their online newsletter. Joan asked me about my strategies for fitting a writing life into a 9-5 working life (not easy) and about…
Writers in the Trenches: Packing a Suitcase — and Marketing A Book — with Ellie Dias
I first “met” Ellie Dias (we’ve actually never met in person) when she was signed on to the same publisher that published my memoir-in-essays, Message From a Blue Jay. The authors published by that wonderful independent press, Buddhapuss Ink, tended…