Book Publishing – A Few Things I’ve Learned
This essay also appeared in The Startup on Medium In the fall of 1985 I sat down at an ancient typewriter and called myself a writer. I wrote short stories, one after another, and nine years later published my first one. Eventually I collected the best of them, and this became my 2011 title, […]
Advice You Won’t Get In A Writing Program
originally published in Manhattan Book Review, December 7, 2015 Let me begin by saying that you will learn a lot in any good creative writing program. The most important of which will be what questions to ask as you craft your narrative. Every facet of writing – character development, setting, pacing, imagery and so […]
I PUBLISHED MY BOOK! NOW WHAT?
originally published on October 19, 2015 in Women Writers, Women’s Books Once upon a time my writing life centered on writing, getting a short story published, writing another story, and so on. It went this way for decades. People asked me from time to time why I didn’t get a collection together, and publish […]
Overcoming Writer’s Block
originally published August 3, 2015 in Prose We’ve all had it, that moment when nothing comes to mind. Our words stare back at us, asking to be fleshed out, continued, fulfilled, and we can do nothing to help them. Our protagonist has gotten herself stuck firmly this time, and is going nowhere fast. The most […]
Anne’s Maxims On The Writing Life
Here are some of the things I tell myself when I get the blues about my writing: You started this story because it was important for you to tell it. And you’re the only one who can tell it, so you better keep going. Think of your characters. If you give up now, […]
New Year’s Edition of “I Give You My Word” Newsletter
This year is just about gone, and next year holds the usual mystery – what will happen? And when? 2014 is the year that I owned my crankiness about the publishing world. Despite the fact that I’ve been writing for almost thirty years, and publishing regularly for the last fifteen, I never really thought […]
Getting In
This article originally appear in Women Writers, Women’s Books on September 23, 2014 As Heidi Klum says on Project Runway, either you’re in, or your out. The world of publishing works this way, too. There are barriers and hurdles to get over, doors to walk through, people who welcome you, and those […]
When The Line Becomes A Circle – A Writer’s Story
In my new novel, What Is Found, What Is Lost, one of the main protagonists (there are four) reflects that “time was a loop, from now to then and back again.” Freddie, who changed her name at age twenty-one, and moved Heaven and earth to put a troubled past behind her, finds that the past […]
Talking Yourself Through It
My good friend and writing colleague, Nina Lorraine, has been having a hard time lately. She’s down in the dumps, uninspired, looking for a way forward. My heart went out to her, and I tried to give her some words of advice, consolation, at the very least, a helping hand. Before I continue, I think […]