My favorite female authors

In honor of International Women’s Day, I wanted to share some of my favorite contemporary female authors. Who are your favorites? Here they are (from top, left to right), along with the books that made me love them: Maggie O’Farrell–After You’d Gone; The Hand That First Held Mine; I Am, I Am, I Am Liane — Read More

The importance of reading for writers

This post isn’t going to say what you think it’s going to say. You probably think it’s going to say that I think writers should read all the classics and all the award winners and all the “important” books. But I don’t believe that to be true. I’ve always been a reader. I hesitate to — Read More

First drafts

Now that my book is done, I’ve resumed working on a novel I started while I was waiting on edits. And, I have to say, despite all I’ve learned over the last year, I still have familiarĀ feelings of insecurity as I dig into this new book. I know lots of writers feel this way. I’ve — Read More

Spotlight on: Maggie O’Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell is the kind of writer I aspire to be. Her prose is poetic, but accessible. Her characters are complex (and the relationships between them are simply beautiful). Her stories read quickly, with an air of suspense. They are dramas, with hints of humor. I read my first Maggie O’Farrell book last year–The Hand — Read More

Writer envy

The latest issue of Poets & Writers magazine features an article about Judy Blume. She just releasedĀ a new, for-adults book called In the Unlikely Event (which is currently sitting in my Amazon cart). A particularly intriguing part of the article: Blume suffered an existential funk in the early 1980s after reading Dad (Knopf, 1981) by — Read More