Writing Blog
Books are good for your soul…
I first saw this great image on Twitter, where @mdonnellywriter tweeted it alongside the wise observation: Books help us in so many ways. Watch the readers after lunch, and then the no-lunchers, and the phoners. Who’s calm? It’s so refreshing to see people with a book on their lunch breaks, or on a subway car…
Read MoreGreetings from Matera!
As this goes out, I’m enjoying myself at the annual Matera Women’s Fiction Festival. I’m probably having a brilliant time exploring the picturesque cave district of this unique southern Italian town, chatting about books and reading with fellow participants, learning all about the changing publishing industry from the panels of experts, and enjoying the creative…
Read MoreMy stories will be published in Digital Papercut
I heard the nice news that two of my short stories have been accepted for publication in the online literary journal Digital Papercut. I have been putting together a series of short stories of Italian women and expatriate women living in Italy, which I would eventually like to compile in a collection. In the meantime,…
Read MoreReading as a means to slip into another’s skin…
Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul. -Joyce Carol Oates I love this quote by the talented and prolific writer Joyce Carol Oates. I was lucky enough to hear Oates speak about writing on a visit she had to Rome, see my earlier…
Read MoreWhat’s your writing inspiration this summer?
Summer days are great for lots of things – getting out and enjoying your city or town, meeting up with friends, spending more time with family, taking holidays and slipping out of the rhythms of the daily grind. For writers, it can also be a time for inspiration. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a period…
Read MoreSeven essential elements of a bestselling novel
The ever-helpful Writer’s Digest fuels the imagination of aspiring authors with their handy checklist: Seven essential elements of a bestselling novel. Some – like readability and reasons to care – are obvious. Others, like seeking out controversy are interesting suggestions. The example provided uses as an example Scarlett O’Hara of Gone with the Wind. By any…
Read MoreFavorite summer reads? Part 2
Last week I wrote about summer reading in general, those distant memories of long summer holidays and stacks of good books I’d devour as a child. Seems that, despite work, and family obligations, and-ahem-the tiny amount of time I (should) eke out for writing, some things simply don’t change. I still love summer reading, and…
Read MoreFavorite summer reads?
I don’t know what it is about summer, but the books I read over the summer holidays are always indelibly stamped on my brain. I can remember long summer holidays as a kid, and the books I read. I remember being nine, sitting by a lake and reading the terrifying story of ‘Bella’, a possessed…
Read MoreEarth to female authors? The Booker Prize 2014
The longlist to the Booker 2014 has been released, and what a white-male-dominated list it is. I’ve already written about innovative social media campaigns such as #Readwomen2014, created because talented, female authors are largely ignored by mainstream literary journals. I also read excellent sites such as The Writes of Women and VIDA , both of which bring…
Read More19th century meets the 21st century: The Austen Project
I’ve been reading Sense & Sensibility, not the original, but the first volume of ‘The Austen Project‘. The AustenProject teams up contemporary authors with 19th century classics written by one of my favorite authors of all time – Jane Austen. The first novel in the series is written by British bestselling author Joanna Trollope, and…
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