The Happy Booker-Alternative Book Award

My friend and blogging buddy, author Catherine McNamara (if you haven’t seen my author interview with Catherine, take a look here), has nominated me to create a list for the Happy Booker-Alternative Book Award. I follow the Booker prize each year – here are the nominations for 2013, but I like the idea of a…

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I joined the new Women’s Fiction Writers Association

I learned about this association on a blog I follow, author Amy Nathan’s excellent Women’s fiction writers blog. Amy, author of the soon-to-be-released The Glass Wives, posts lots of great author interviews for authors writing women’s fiction. Her site is a tremendous resource for those interested in the genre. It’s through one of Amy’s posts…

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My story, Bitter Harvest, won a UK writing contest

Back in November, I wrote a post about National Short Story Week. In that post, I included links to markets for short stories and contests. I also decided to enter one of the contests myself. I’m a real sucker for writing prompts and this one intrigued me. The UK region of Hartlepool decided to sponsor…

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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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