Ann Griffin When, in my fifties, I learned of two cousins and an aunt I had never heard of, their story was so compelling that I decided it needed to be written, and I assigned myself the task. The protagonist and antagonist were both deceased, making it impossible to write it as biography, so I […]

Colleen M. Story  Whenever I visit a pier—any pier—one of my favorite things to do is to walk along and read all the boat names. It’s fun to see what people choose to call their watercraft, but I’ve also found that when I’m lucky, one of the names will have something special to say to […]

Kathryn Craft As you sat at the table counting and sharing your blessings last week, I’ll venture there was an entire subset of “blessings” that you skirted past. Because, frankly, to say them aloud would ruin everyone’s appetite. Now that your feast is digested, I’m going to suggest you seek the truth in the following […]

Hannah McKinnon Nonlinear narratives – stories where events don’t happen in chronological order – are extremely useful for tension and pacing, but can be confusing to read and are notoriously difficult to write. Movies such as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and The Usual Suspects have nonlinear structures, as did the rom-com Sliding Doors. But visual […]

Amy Impellizzeri Before I was a novelist, I was a corporate litigator for 13+ years. When I left corporate law in 2009, I didn’t leave to write novels. I left for what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical intended to treat a bad case of professional burnout. With three small children under the age […]