The word count conundrum

At some point before submitting, a writer must confront the big question out there : What kind of word count is acceptable to literary agents and publishers? Fortunately, there’s a VERY helpful post for writers from Writer’s Digest on word count, broken down by genre. This is something you may not have considered until the…

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Reason #5372 to love Rome: Soccer/Football card trading

Okay, this falls firmly under the ‘things we do as parents for our kids’ category. My half-Italian sons are – like 99.9% of their peers- crazy about calcio (soccer for Americans, football for Brits). Here, all the kids collect football cards, buying packets, putting them in their albums, trading them with their friends. But the…

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#ReadWomen2014

I read about this great initiative, the #ReadWomen2014 Twitter campaign earlier this year. In recent years, a lot of attention has been focused on the gender bias in the publishing industry. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority  of readers are women, male authors still enjoy the lion’s share of media attention, awards, covers of…

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Not just mustard in Dijon, France

Okay, perhaps Dijon’s biggest name recognition comes form those jars of tasty, spicy mustard, but there are lots more reasons to go to this charming city, southeast of Paris, in France’s Bourgogne region. A few summers ago, we stopped off at Dijon as we were driving to our holiday in Brittany. Needless to say, we…

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I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Blog Her Award

An extra big thank you/grazie to my blog buddy and real-life buddy each year in Matera, the talented author Catherine McNamara, for nominating me for the Liebster Blog Her Award. If you don’t yet know Catherine’s work, take a look at my earlier author interviews with her for her novel and short stories. As part of…

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Braving the rain and mud in Paliano, Italy

If it’s early Sunday morning and you run into me in some little town in Lazio wearing running sneakers caked in several  layers of thick mud, chances are I’m accompanying my eight-year-old to one of his state running competitions. My Sunday morning under the pounding rain in pretty Paliano,  was no exception. My son had…

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Brainstorming at the Spa 2014

I’ve heard so many great things about the Brainstorming at the Spa event held each year in Matera, Italy. This year it takes place 4-7 April 2014. This is an event organized by the Women’s Fiction Festival I write so much about, held each year in September in Matera, southern Italy. For the past three…

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