You’ve finished writing your book. Now what?

The always helpful Writer’s Digest has a great post up: 7 Things to Do After Finishing Your Book. Authors – fairly enough – consider their first job to be writing their books. But today you have to be a master-of-all-trades when it comes to promoting your writing career. So you’ve finished your book and broken…

Read More

Boys don’t read?

I’ve already written about my fantastic annual pilgrimage to the Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera last month. One of many interesting discussions for writers was the (terrifying?) assertion that boys don’t read. Media consultant Porter Andersen discussed this interesting topic. When boys and girls are young, they are read to by their parents, caretakers, teachers,…

Read More

Surrounded by the Atlantic, in Vigo, Spain

Earlier this month, I was in Galicia, Spain for the first time. Although I’ve traveled quite a bit around beautiful Spain, I’d never journeyed to westernmost points before. I was in the port city of Vigo for work. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to explore this interesting city, but I did manage to do…

Read More

November’s almost upon us. Will you be NaNo-ing?

We’ve arrived once again, fellow writers. November is just around the corner, and you know what that means… For a small group of writers (and those, like me, who cheer you on from the sidelines),  it means the annual challenge known as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) This insane inspiring novel-writing challenge asks writers to…

Read More

Admiring Prague from a paddleboat on the Vltava

This past summer, I was with my family in Prague, Czech Republic. On a beautiful, sunny day, my kids wanted to rent a paddleboat out on the Vltava River to float along and enjoy the city from a new perspective. Back when I lived in this city, two decades ago, it seemed a ridiculously touristy…

Read More

Wrap-up of the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival 2015

Wow, another amazing year in southern Italy at the annual Matera Women’s Fiction Festival. I have been going for the past few years, and I always enjoy this yearly pilgrimage to this beautiful Italian cave town, and the chance to learn about trends in publishing and writing, to attend writing workshops and one-on-one sessions with…

Read More

Silver mining wealth in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic

Only 60 kilometers southeast from the Czech Republic’s capital, Kutna Hora is an easy day trip from Prague. I can remember visiting here in the days when I lived in Prague over (gulp!) two decades ago. Once, I missed the ‘fast’ train and had to take the milk train – it took four and a…

Read More

Hiking the Graukogel in Badgastein, Austria

I posted last week about my summer holidays in Mitteleuropa. The first place we stopped on our travels is the picture-perfect Alpine village of Badgastein, located in the Gasteiner valley in the Salzburg province. There are kilometers and kilometers of beautiful hiking trails in this pretty Alpine perch. The first day there, we decided to…

Read More