Once a year or so, I teach a lesson in my adult writing classes called Beginnings. (I’ve written about this before, here and here.) I scour bookshelves—my own or the local bookstore’s—in search of excellent opening sentences. It’s not that easy. Many opening sentences, of fiction and nonfiction, are at least good, but too many …
My Words Fly Up
I “started” my current novel nearly two years ago, prompted by the fact that I was nearly done with one novel—As the Crow Flies—and by a casual comment my mother made about obituaries. She was scoffing at the bland wording some obituaries used and how little they revealed of the person who had died. I …
Who knew that getting rid of a piece of furniture in my living room would require me to organize boxes in my attic? While going through those boxes, I realized I had copies of several of my books—four romance novels and my young adult novel. They are not doing anyone any good boxed up in …
I just finished reading Ann Patchett’s collection of essays, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. She ranges far in subject matter—her dog, a research trip in an RV, the LA police department—but the second essay is the one that probably would be of the most interest to writers. In “The Getaway Car,” she …
The bookstore in Portsmouth, NH, RiverRun Books, has a publishing side to it called Piscataqua Press. I know a few people who have published through Piscataqua Press–Martha Barron Barrett (aka Mom) with Slow Travel and Barbara Hesselman Kautz with When I Die I’m Going to Heaven ‘Cause I Spent My Time in Hell–and people who …
Whoever said classical music was boring?
I read a lot. Not just a lot of books, but many different kinds of book. The photo here is of the books that decorated my nightstand during May, except for one that I already loaned to a friend. That was Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott. The back cover led me to …
A student and I exchanged book recommendations recently, in which I didn’t like the ending in either book, and my student, Brian, didn’t like the ending in one of them. The book we agreed on was The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell. The one we didn’t agree on was Divisadero by Michael …
My mother has written three books–two novels, one nonfiction–and numerous newspaper columns and magazine articles. And now she has published a new book, a marvelous travel memoir of the three winters she and her partner spent chasing the sun. She and Sandy traveled, in successive winters, to New Zealand, South Africa and Spain, and Argentina …
Several months ago I heard John Irving speak at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A few months later I heard Margaret Atwood at the same venue as she read from her latest book and was interviewed. Both authors were engaging and dropped various jewels of insight that readers and writers could grab. Yet …