Author interview: Catherine McNamara

If you read my blog posts, you know how much I’ve enjoyed attending the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival, held each September in southern Italy. But it’s not just for the great information and advice you receive about the publishing industry today, or even the one-on-one meetings with agents. The real plus to this conference is…

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What I learned at the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival – Part 2

I’ve already mentioned much of what I learned at this year’s Matera Women’s Fiction Festival in Part 1. In that post, I covered issues related to  electronic publishing, the newly-coined term   ‘dicoverability’, and the role of agents today in a quickly-shifting marketplace. But just to prove all my time wasn’t spent wandering the steep…

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What I learned at the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival

In September,  I went for the second time to the annual Matera Women’s Fiction Festival, in the beautiful southern Italian town of Matera. The festival brings together many women –and a few men –  writers of women’s fiction, including mainstream, romance, mystery, fantasy, thrillers, historical and young adult. There are so many changes going on…

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Greetings from the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival

This is an advance post anticipating the fun I’ll be having at the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival when this goes up. The annual festival is underway in the spectacular southern Italian town of Matera. If you haven’t seen my travel post on Matera  and you’re flat out of ideas for your next holiday, be sure…

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My story ‘Holiday Bliss’ is now online

I announced a while back that my short story, Holiday Bliss, was selected for the upcoming edition of the WriteFrance anthology. The publication will be released later this month, but prior to its launch, the WriteFrance site has made the pdf file of the publication temporarily available online. If you’re interested in reading Holiday Bliss,…

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Best writing advice: Finish your book!

Over at the fantastic web site, Women’s Fiction Writers , debut novelist Kim Izzo, author of The Jane Austen Marriage Manual , offers some important, simple advice to aspiring authors – Finish your book ! Kim’s advice is to get it all down from start to finish, without getting too bogged down with perfect phrasing…

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Be inspired! In the Shadow of the Apennines

Melinda Dozier , talented romance writer and wonderful critique partner, tagged me for this Blog Hop!, hosted by Page after Page . Thanks, Melinda!! As Page after Page points out, all of our stories come from somewhere, whether it be a dream, another book, a life event, etc. And as writers, we need to be…

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Rejections can be inspiring?

Okay, so we all know an aspiring author must develop a thick skin. Critique groups dish out criticism, so do our beta readers. And on top of that, we’re probably our own worst critics. We’ve all sent out work that we’ve slaved over, but that just doesn’t wow an agent or editor and we have…

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I’ve signed up for the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival

Last September, I went to my first-ever writer’s conference and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve signed up for this year’s event. The Ninth Annual International Women’s Fiction Festival will take place in Matera, Italy, 27-30 September 2012. The Fiction Festival is a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere, filled with writing workshops, brainstorming sessions, pitching sessions…

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