Family Life Stories
Making Meaning from Loss
When their only child was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of 2, Maryanne O'Hara and her husband were told that Caitlin could live a long life or die in a matter of months. Thirty-one years later, following an excruciating, two-year wait on the...
Poets & Resilience
I love how different genres of books can appeal to all kinds of readers. I recently read three books written by poets, in the categories of inspiration, memoir, and prayer. Maggie Smith's Keep Moving is a little collection of "notes on loss, creativity, and change."...
Welcome to My Bookshop
As an author and avid reader, I'm always concerned about the success of community treasures like independent bookstores. If you are too, check out Bookshop, a terrific new site where you can buy books and your purchases benefit the book stores you love. I've curating...
Crossover Fiction Gets Parents & Teens Talking
Numerous studies also confirm what every reader already knows—that the novel is an incomparable vehicle for the exploration of human social and emotional life. Literary critics and philosophers have long advanced the notion that one of fiction’s main jobs is to raise...
The Art of Balance: What to expect when you’re expecting a writing career
You wait for your characters to reveal the heart of their stories to you. You read and reread your novel, begging it to sing so you’ll know you’re done. You wait for an agent to read your manuscript, then an editor to make an offer. Rejection slips come in the forms...
Changing The Way You Think About Women’s Fiction
It’s a reality that male writers are taken more seriously than women writers. All anyone needs to do to become disheartened is read the Vida numbers. Trust me, I wish I could laugh when The Washington Post’s Ron Charles talked about “women gossiping about how their...