Lilacs bloom, filling the warm air with heady scent. How do you describe the smell of a lilac? Does it smell like wind and sun? Silt and grapes? Smell has to be described as something else. A story of the heart has to be told as something else. When I first caught...
As I prepare for five days on the shores of Lake Simcoe with Pat Schneider, I consider what I wish to accomplish on those dream-come-true days. Weather Vane has rounded a corner and is bouncing toward the finish line. It would be so lovely to dedicate most of my time...
One hears the anecdotes about famous authors who had been rejected twenty-seven times before being accepted by one daring publisher, only to have their work become a classic, or sell a zillion copies. But after a piece has seen rejection a couple of times, the patina...
> Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to take a writing holiday, or I should say a holiday from writing. I have begun to feel as if my novel is complete, that the work is done, and my characters are off on their not-so-merry ways living their own lives without my...
>As I wait for my manuscript to come home from school, I have been holding up pieces of it to the window and to the mirror. I watch light sparking off its facets as it turns in my hand. Some of the sparks have caught fire. Here are some of the secondary characters...
> I have several options now. Or at least I thought I did. With fire singeing my ass, I consider immediately beginning the next novel, alternating my time with re-writing this first beloved work. I want to go on every retreat for a five hundred mile radius, the New...
