Our daughter is taking a post-graduate writing class in creative non-fiction. We would so much rather she be studying engineering or plumbing or animal-husbandry – something with the letters j.o.b. appended. When we – hovering anxiously – ask her why she is studying writing, she says she may need it sometime in her to-be-determined career […]

Every time an author starts a new chapter or even a scene in a work of fiction, she or he is almost starting from scratch. Every scene has to be established. Where and when is it taking place? What is the time of day and what relation does this scene have to the one that […]

We have an elderly relative who says that older books – the classics – were written to be read aloud. He regularly reads aloud to his spouse; in doing so, maybe he has discerned something. His observation begs the question, do you think about how your writing sounds when read out loud? Do you read […]

When we think about books that have really thrilled us in the last two decades, we think of non-fiction. We vividly remember listening to THE PERFECT STORM (pub.1997) as we drove the Merritt Parkway so enrapt we were only intermittently aware of the road or the traffic. We would have been safer texting. What is […]