Writing Blog
My thoughts will be in Matera for the Women’s Fiction Festival!
I’ve spent many a happy weekend at the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival in the spectacular, southern Italian “cave” town of Matera. After a one year hiatus, the Festival will take place once again at the end of this month, but sadly without me. My inability to attend this year doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking…
Read MoreBook review: Wake
Oddly, I’d had this book on my shelf for some time. I remembered it only after picking it up in French in a French bookstore and being drawn in by the story and the excellent blurbs – before realizing I shouldn’t buy it because I had the original version back home. : ) This novel…
Read MoreWise words (learned on holidays) to face the ‘rientro’
In Italian it’s called the ‘rientro’. In French the ‘rentrée’. In America, where holidays are so stingy – if you’re allowed to take them at all – I doubt the term exists at all. If it did, it would be called ‘The Return’. Back when I worked in my own country, I wasn’t familiar with…
Read MoreBook review: The Human Flies
I bought this novel when traveling in Norway. Embarrassingly, aside from Ibsen (whom I love), I’m completely ignorant about Norwegian writers. I know Norway boasts thriller writers, such as Nesbo, who fill the book shops, but I was looking for something different and picked up this debut mystery novel by contemporary author Hans Olav Lahlum.…
Read MoreQuality over quantity – E.M. Forster
“My regret is that I haven’t written a bit more.” E.M. Forster I was surprised to read E.M. Forster’s regret – if anything, it proves that harboring regrets makes no sense. It’s true that the British writer Forster (1879-1970) only wrote six novels (one published posthumously) over his long lifetime – in addition to his…
Read MoreDo you often remember where you read your novels better than the books themselves?
I’ve already written a post about context reading. The concept is the same as ‘context drinking’ – how that Tuscan wine just tastes so much better when you drink it on holidays on a sunny piazza in Italy than it does when you bring it home to Peoria. When I travel I often look for…
Read MoreBook Review: The Expatriates
I enjoyed this novel following the lives of three expatriate women living in Hong Kong. The Expatriates by Janice Y.K. Lee explores the lives of three women – all adrift in their own way – living in Hong Kong’s expat community. Mercy is a Korean-American Ivy League grad who has been drifting ever since graduating…
Read MoreBook review: Hidden
This is the third novel I’ve read – and enjoyed – by Canadian author, Catherine McKenzie. Hidden is the story of a love triangle that unravels slowly following the death of Jeff, beloved father of Seth and husband of Claire and possible lover of Tish, a colleague who works at the same corporation, in another…
Read MoreNot a plotter, just a fretter and wheelspinner?
“I hardly do any preplanning, just fretting and wheel spinning Geoff Dyer Had to laugh when I read this writing quote by British novelist Geoff Dyer, and realized I really could relate. I also do minimal planning before a story. Generally, I have a scene or a big-picture idea. I may even have a voice…
Read MoreBook review: The Trophy Son
There was a lot of publicity around this novel by Douglas Brunt when it was released this summer, and I was curious to read it. In this novel, we follow the story of tennis prodigy Anton Stratis. Andre is pushed into professional tennis by his overbearing father, who tried and failed to create a tennis…
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