As you all know by now, it’s a very exciting week for us here at the ball because we are celebrating our first book release! We all had the chance to read Devi’s book many months ago, and I must say, I was not one bit surprised by all the attention it has been getting, the many amazing lists it’s been on, and the literary world’s general excitement…
We are so thrilled to have Vancouver-based author and poet Chelene Knight as our guest on The Debutante Ball this week!! Chelene has been published in various Canadian and American literary magazines, and her work is widely anthologized. Chelene is currently the managing editor at Room magazine, and the 2018 Programming Director for the Growing Room Festival, and CEO of #LearnWritingEssentials. Chelene has been a judge for many writing contests…
I’m delighted to welcome my friend Vijaya Nagarajan to the Debutante Ball this week! Vijaya Nagarajan is an Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Theology/Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco. She writes about Hinduism, gender, ritual, ecology and the commons. Recently her work has centered around spiritual autobiographies of place, especially around immigration and motherhood. She has been active in…
“The query letter is…the single most important page an unpublished writer will ever write” — Nicholas Spark This week’s subject of discussion is supposed to be about querying tips, as in what tips can you give an aspiring writer when querying potential publishers and agents? Unfortunately my querying stories and experiences are good only in the theoretical — as in it’s a good topic to discuss in the abstract….
I’m so thrilled to welcome Christine O’Brien to the Debutante Ball this week! Christine is a lecturer in the English Composition Department at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, CA. She earned a BA in English at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a double MFA in non-fiction and fiction from St. Mary’s College, where she was awarded the college’s Agnes Butler Scholarship for Literary Excellence. Christine has previously worked…
“Morning comes whether you set the alarm or not.” – Ursula K. LeGuin Well, I’m in the thick of the stew now, aren’t I? I’m trying to expel 50,000 words from my brain onto the page by the end of the month for NaNoWriMo and trying hard not to be sucked in to the countdown until the Midterm Elections. By the time you read this, if you read this, We…
Don’t think about making art. Just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. — Andy Warhol I suppose I could write an entire tome about my fears these days, how unsafe America is for people of color, how America is changing, how the rhetoric and public discourse has become so…
I’m so happy to welcome Vanessa Hua to the Debutante Ball this week! Vanessa is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of the short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, and the national bestseller, A River of Stars, which O, The Oprah Magazine calls “a marvel” and The Economist says is “delightful.” For two decades, she has been writing, in journalism and in fiction, about Asia and the Asian diaspora. She has received a Rona Jaffe…
I really want to write a rant to all the devastations of the day: the Kavanaugh vote in the Senate, the FBI’s incomplete investigation, the senator from Maine’s weak speech justifying her vote against women, the Senate’s dismissal and nullification of Dr. Ford’s courage. But I have to write for the Debs, it’s that time of the week where the Debs must cull their thoughts for the topic at hand….
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…
