I’m so, so happy to feature poet, novelist and now, non-fiction author Elizabeth Rosner on the blog this week! Elizabeth and I are literary agency AND publisher sisters – both represented by the wonderful DeFiore & Company in New York, publishing our books with the incredible Counterpoint Press located in Berkeley, CA. Elizabeth is the author of five, count-em five, books — and most recently her first non-fiction/memoir Survivor Café: The Legacy of…
Unbalanced: A Tale of Motherhood
I’m just going to say this up front: I’ve never balanced work, life, writing, and family. I don’t know how to do that. The only thing I can tell you about in this post is how NOT to do that. I can tell you about my belief that striking such a balance is impossible, and how I’ve always been grateful that I never had to try. I’m…
It’s all life, it’s all writing
It has been a rough week in the news, and I imagine that I don’t speak for just me when I say that what’s playing out in the screens is also affecting us in our hearts. On weeks like this, writing feels like looking up to the sky, lifting my face towards a God I don’t believe in, waiting for an answer. What can I possibly write to make anything…
On Balance: Writing, Work, and Life with Chronic Pain
By all accounts, I should have an easy time striking a balance between writing, work, and life. I work from home, with a flexible schedule. I have a partner who does his fair share of the housework and then some, and provides unwavering emotional support for my writing career. I don’t have children or other caregiving commitments chipping away at my writing time. But I also have chronic pain. You…
Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: An Abridged Autobiography, in Books & Comics & Such…
This week’s theme: “balancing writing and work and life” has led me to write: an abridged autobiography, in books and comics and such Don’t remember much before 1970, when I was about four. I watched The Bugaloos, the bug rock-n-roll band who lived in the forest and had to outwit an evil witch. I loved them so much I got the official Bugaloos lunch box and matching thermos, to take…
Flinging Yourself into Balance
Such calm! Such peace! Such lighting! That’s the kind of image I think of when someone brings up balance. And. I mean. It is balance, of a sort. But this portrayal is problematic. For one, it’s static. It looks effortless because we didn’t see this person get up on the tree stump, we didn’t watch them lift their leg – once, twice – as they tried and failed and…
[News Flash] September 23, 2018
Congratulations to Wendy, winner of last week’s giveaway of Under a Dark Sky! Thank you so much to yesterday’s guest, Suzanne Baltsar! If you haven’t already, enter the #DebBallGiveaway to win a copy of Trouble Brewing. You can enter by sharing our post on Facebook and/or retweeting the following tweet: Check out this week’s guest interview with @SuzMWrites and RT for a chance to win a copy of her debut novel…
Interview with Suzanne Baltsar and Trouble Brewing Giveaway
I’m so thrilled to feature debut author Suzanne Baltsar on the blog this week! Suzanne and I are agent AND publisher sisters – both repped by the fabulous Sharon Pelletier and debuting with Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster. Suzanne’s long history with books can be traced back to the second grade when she learned she could earn free pizzas in exchange for book reports, thus beginning her addiction to personal pan…
The Alpine Path
Those of you who read my post last week may remember that most of it was reminiscing about my childhood love for L. M. Montgomery’s heroine, Emily Starr, and how my obsession with her eventually inspired me to write the book that is now my debut. Since this week we’re all blogging about “the path to publication,” I titled my little piece with one last reference to Emily….
Choose Your Own Adventure: Two Stories About the Querying Process
This week for The Debutante Ball, we’re sharing our journey to getting a literary agent, so I dug through the archives of my email outbox so you can experience truly and authentically the real realness of my querying process, before I landed the book deal for THEY COULD HAVE NAMED HER ANYTHING. WARNING: THERE ARE TWO PARTS OF THIS BLOG POST. THIS IS STORY #1. Read this story to be…
