Finding our author voice

For those who love writing and reading, the discussion about author voice and that feeling we experience when we’re fully immersed in a character voice in a new novel we’re reading is endlessly fascinating. Sadly, it also takes lots (and lots, and lots) of practice to develop. This is why I was eager to sign…

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A mega campus & Big 10 Football at Ohio State University

I’ve already written about my visit this past summer to Ohio’s capital of Columbus. In previous posts I’ve written about German Village, the Scioto Rover walk and the Short North District. Not far beyond Short North lies the sprawling campus of Ohio State University, so we had to stop off to see it, even though…

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Hemingway’s take on life’s not fair, get over it

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” -Ernest Hemingway I grew up reading Ernest Hemingway, and devoured most of his works in my younger years, but I couldn’t say he was ever a favorite author of mine. Yet, in this odd age of “Words are violence!” and a quest…

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Barbarians (and kids) at the gate

San Giovanni, Rome, Italy/ Kimberly Sullivan

The Aurelian Walls of Ancient Rome are still in remarkably good condition in today’s Rome. It isn’t called the Eternal City for nothing. Built between 270- 275 AD under Emperor Aurelius, the Aurelian Walls eventually reached 19 kilometers of defensive walls guarded by Roman soldiers who were vigilalant in ensuring the Barbarians were not capable…

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Book Review: Grown Ups

Grown Ups book cover

Irish author Marian Keyes always delivers interesting characters, and her latest novel, Grown Ups, doesn’t disappoint. The novel unfolds in Dublin, and on various holiday locales around Ireland – and one further afield in Tuscany, Italy. We’re introduced rather quickly to a large cast of characters. The Casey brothers – Johnny, Ed and Liam –…

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Book review: All the Lonely People

All The Lonely People book cover

I so enjoyed reading my first Mike Gayle novel, Half A World Away, earlier this year that I decided to also read his newest, All the Lonely People. It didn’t disappoint. This story opens as we observe a grumpy, old man, Hubert Bird, speaking from his London home with his daughter who works in Australia.…

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Book review: Love Stories for Hectic People

I have written past posts about Australian-author-transplanted-to-Italy Catherine McNamara’s fiction, whether it be her debut novel, her short story collection, Pelt or her Rome reading from her latest short story collection, The Cartography of Others. So I was thrilled when I learned that she’d branched out into flash fiction, and that her latest collection of…

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