19th 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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#ReadWomen2014 progress: Favorite books so far

I’m so happy to have learned earlier this year from Claire, over at the wonderful Word by Word site about the #ReadWomen2014 challenge, and  I’ve written about in an earlier post. I strongly support the objective of this campaign. Talented women writers too often fall into an unfair, second-tier category when it comes to traditional book…

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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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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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The new Women’s Fiction Writers Association

I wrote a post about this new association when it was still an informal Yahoo mail loop. But about a month ago, the group became an official association and I just paid my annual dues and became an ‘official’ member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association a few weeks ago. See their web site here.…

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Wrap-up of Matera Women’s Fiction Festival 2013

I am just back from my fabulous annual pilgrimage to the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival. This is my third year participating in this inspiring event. Once again, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about publishing from the experts, had a great time at live pitching sessions to agents and publishers, met a wonderful group of interesting…

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Greetings from the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival!

I’m writing this in advance, as I’ll have my hands full attending the annual Matera Women’s Fiction Festival when this is posted. This is my third year attending, so I know what an (enjoyable) hectic pace it is. Here’s what I’ll be doing when this goes on-line: First, I’ll be busy eating and drinking well.…

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