Christina Delay Have you noticed the “lean-in” effect when you talk about writing to a muggle? Or how muggles and other writers smile when you explain your story idea, hands waving all over as you describe a new world, new characters, and what tickled your interest with the story in the first place? You know […]

Today is Groundhog Day, when people all over the United States wait to hear if groundhog Phil's shadow in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is visible.  We've been doing this since the 1800's even though it's an incredibly weird thing to depend on a rhodent's shadow to predict when Spring will begin. Still, when a writer hears about […]

Kathryn Craft I love to go hear other authors speak. What a kick that Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout sounds like my favorite quirky aunt, or that bestselling author Margot Livesey’s lush prose begins with characters who, like mine, nod and shrug their way through her first drafts. I’ve walked away from dozens of such […]

Cathy Lamb When I was about eight, my parents took my sisters, my brother, and me on a six week camping trip in a tent. Yes, I said six weeks. No, my parents had not lost their ever lovin’ minds. My father had a sabbatical, they were sick of the city, and they wanted out. […]

Last week, Fae Rowen discussed her reading habits in Beware: Voracious Reading Ahead. Like her, I remember reading way more than my friends and classmates when I was young, devouring every book that came my way. I started with the marvelous for Laura Ingalls Wilder and Nancy Drew. Then a very strange novel in 5th grade […]