I’ve moved around a lot in the past decade, and I’ve had to cull my writing friends from a number of different sources. The first time I joined an actual writing group was when I moved to the outskirts of Philadelphia and found one through Meetup that was only a few minutes from my children’s school. In many ways, Just Write changed my life. I had started a…
I write a lot. I devote the majority of every day to writing, reading, and editing. (It really helps to have a work-and-home SigO who is always working.) I know I’m both incredibly lucky to be able to do so and also incredibly boring by most people’s standards. I get antsy when I’m away from my work for too long. Even when I travel—and I travel a lot—I write…
On the one hand, it’s easy to discount the need for research in memoir. I mean, who knows your life better than you do? There was actually a good bit of research that went into crafting Girlish. I spoke at length with my siblings, various family members and had many conversations with both my childhood friends and some of my parents’ friends. I read a lot of memoir and poetry…
This was my laptop’s wallpaper through out the months of crafting my memoir: I have posted it on Facebook too many times to count. When I wake in the middle of the night short of breath from anxiety, when the idea of my memoir coming into the world seems too much to bear, I chant it over and over. Your silence will not protect you. I had first read…
Author Adria Cimino is the author of several novels, including her latest release, THE PERFUMER’S SECRET. The quest for a stolen perfume formula awakens passion, rivalry and family secrets in the fragrant flower fields of the South of France… Perfumer Zoe Flore travels to Grasse, perfume capital of the world, to collect a formula: her inheritance from the family she never knew existed. The scent matches the one worn by…
I have a wonky memory. I have purchased many novels, and have read twenty or thirty pages in only to realize that I had read the book before. I forget character’s names and movie titles and basically every plot point. My lack of memory goes for my own life as well as the stories I consume, so when I read that this week’s theme was childhood memories, I felt at…
I have a secret to tell you. I have a superpower. And you can have it, too.* My superpower is that I see beauty everywhere. Now, I’m not talking about seeing beauty in a saccharine, Pollyanna kind of way, or in a Lego Movie Everything is Awesome way, or in a hippy, it’s all good kind of way—especially not the last one. You don’t need to know me very long…
The theme this week is Favorite Things, and while I could go on endlessly about the things I love, (and do so in rhyme, while singing) I thought it would be more fun to ask Livvy Rawlings, the main character in my novel THE CITY BAKER’S GUIDE TO COUNTRY LIVING, what her favorite things are. Take it away, Livvy! Favorite item of clothing: I have this old, green L.L. Bean…
I’m a big believer in role models, and I have scores of them. Most are people I know or have known. My dad, who always gave everyone a fair shake, taught me to keep an open mind, and to judge people only by their actions. My banjo teacher shows me everyday that creating a rich, full, creative life is possible. And my author friends remind me through their own kindness…
Naming characters, like naming children and pets, is a funny thing. Names are so important, and pack in so much information. They speak of time, class, and ethnicity. They have history. They have weight. Now, I am not known for my great naming ability. My cat Whitey is named Whitey because, well, she’s white, like a rabbit. And she was adopted the day after our cat Blackie died (who was…
