Do you want to start a writer’s group?
Do historical
research for an article?
Avoid tired science fiction clichés?
Check out my articles below. Want to hear from the horse’s mouth how to structure a creative day, revise a manuscript or market a book? I’ve interviewed a number of best-selling authors including Ursula K. Le Guin, Karen Armstrong and Anita Diamant. For the first time, I’m making all interview material available. Questions or comments? Feel free to contact me. (Complete writing
credits.)
ARTICLES:
"Friendly Fire" (© 2005) appears in award-winning Circles in the Hair.
So you're a neophyte (or as yet undiscovered) writer and going stir crazy in your quiet corner. The only people to read your stories are the hard-hearted editors who send form rejects. With no feedback, you're not even sure they're people much less that they’ve read your stories. You can't show your stuff to your mother (too much gore/sex) or your significant other (too much insight into your twisted soul) or – God forbid – your children ("Ah, man, why can't you be
a normal Mom?")
What are you going to do? Read another book on writing? Hire that critiquing service from the back of a matchbook? How are you going to improve? (Read more.)
"Buttons & Books: Tips on Historical Research" (© 2006) is an update of an article that appeared in Byline.
So you want to write a story – a bodice ripper set in the pirate-ridden Caribbean or a murder mystery in a New Jersey inn during the American Revolution or maybe a vampire tale set in medieval Europe. You know the plot and your characters intimately. You're typing away on the seduction scene when you realize the handsome hero probably doesn't unzip his pants before ravishing the breathless heroine. But does he unbutton, unbuckle, untie, unwrap? Of course, you could finesse with a sentence
like,
"He dropped his garments onto the floor." But it won't be long before your readers get impatient with generalities, because the devil is in the historical details. (Read more.)
"Write Stuff: Go Where No Man – Or TV Show – Has Gone Before" (© 2001) appeared in The Writer.
I grew up watching Star Trek (TOS) and graduated with Star Wars. As much as I enjoyed these media blockbusters and their multitudinous spin-offs, they left an unfortunate legacy in my psyche. When I write science fiction my mind is flooded with romantic images of faster-than-light spaceships, light sabers and "beam me up Scotty!" My imagination, imprinted as a child, tends to go for the fantasy elements of space opera rather than the realistic extrapolations of known science.
There's
nothing inherently wrong with space opera, but when I want to write space stories with a touch of reality, I have to abandon my roots and look elsewhere for inspiration. (Read more.)
"Making Science Fiction Personal: Charles Sheffield Explores the Borderlands of Science" (© 2000) appeared at iUniverse.com.
"We'll soon be capable of creating a simple virus. Within fifteen years of completing the Human Genome Project we'll create life - cellular life." The stuff of science fiction? Yes, but also an assessment of the current state of biology by Dr. Charles Sheffield. The award-winning author of over forty novels, non-fiction books, and story collections straddles the worlds of science and science fiction with ease. Looming large in each, Sheffield has served as past-President
of
both the American Astronautical Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America (organizing the latter he likens to "herding cats.")
In his newest non-fiction venture Borderlands of Science: How to Think Like a Scientist (and Write Science Fiction) published by Baen, Sheffield combines the roles of scientist and fiction writer. The book surveys the current state of physics, chemistry, and biology and how they can be applied to such favorite science fiction topics as the beginning and ending of the universe, space flight and colonization, alien biology, computer and robot design, cloning, immortality, and future war
among
others. (Read more.)
INTERVIEWS:
Popular historical fiction and mystery writer Valerie Anand brings past times and conundrums to life with fascinating characters, abundant detail and meticulous research in her twenty-one novels. In the U.S. she's better known under her pen name Fiona Buckley for her historical mystery series set in the early years of Elizabeth I's reign. Ms. Anand talked to me about her writing, love of history and feminist leanings from her South London home. (Read
more.)
Ms. Armstrong, who calls herself a "freelance monotheist," is among the foremost religious writers and thinkers in the world. A former Catholic nun, she's written biographies of Buddha, the Prophet Mohammed, and St. Peter as well as the best-selling books The Battle for God ; A History of God: The 4000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Ms. Armstrong talked to me about her writing and research
process,
her struggles with life after leaving the convent, religious fundamentalism in all its many forms, and Islam in the modern world. (Read more.)
Anita Diamant wanted to do something different with her writing life. A freelance journalist in the Boston area since 1975, she wrote articles on everything from profiles of prominent people to first-person essays on being a mom. She also found the time to write six books on Jewish lifecycle events. She turned her sights on the biblical story of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter. The result is her best-selling novel The Red Tent, a vivid retelling of the ancient story from the woman's point
of view.
But it wasn't easy. The decision to write this book led Diamant on a journey nearly as adventurous as Dinah's. She talked to me from her home in the Boston area about her writing, research, publishing trials, and the grueling three-year marketing effort that drove her book to the top of the best seller lists. (Read more.)
Who would want to read about a balding, sixty-something, diabetic Episcopal priest who presides over a congregation of ordinary people – hairdressers, garage mechanics, diner cooks, as well as the occasional troubled teenager? About ten million people and climbing. Jan Karon the author of The Mitford Series (nine novels plus seven related gift books) has tapped into something deep and needy in the American spirit. "I just write about ordinary people," Karon says, "and millions
and millions of ordinary people are thrilled to find themselves, their families, and friends living in my books." Ms. Karon spoke to me about writing, the Mitford phenomenon and the joys of rural living from her farm in Virginia. (Read more.)
Ms. Kress claims she never intended to become a writer but staying at home with two infants gave her time to experiment -- and embroidering didn't work out. Lucky for us! She’s the author of twenty-one books: thirteen novels of science fiction or fantasy, one YA novel, two thrillers, three story collections, and two books on writing. Kress’s short fiction has appeared in all the usual places. She has won three Nebulas: in 1985 for Out of All Them Bright Stars, in 1991 for the novella
version
of Beggars In Spain, which also won a Hugo, and in 1998 for The Flowers of Aulit Prison. Kress is the monthly Fiction columnist for Writer’s Digest Magazine and teaches regularly at Clarion. She spoke to me about her writing, teaching, and foray into e-publishing from her home in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Read more.)
Before J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter, there was Ursula K. Le Guin and her best-selling children's stories of wizards and magic in Books of Earthsea. Before Star Wars there was Le Guin's award-winning science fiction classic The Left Hand of Darkness. Born in 1929 to an anthropologist father and writer mother, Le Guin submitted her first story at the tender age of twelve. It was rejected. But she persevered and has defied categorization by publishing mainstream stories, novels,
children's
books, essays, literary criticism and poetry. She's accumulated numerous awards including: the National Book Award, five Hugos, five Nebulas, the Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize and the Howard Vursell Award, among others. Ms. Le Guin talked to me from her home in Portland, Oregon about her art, science fiction, and her book the telling. (Read more.)
Award-winning author James Morrow takes on the foibles and inconsistencies of Western religion with wit and vigor, holding up a mirror and asking, "How far will we go?" Booklist dubs him a "genius" and compares him to Twain, Heller, and Vonnegut, for bringing much needed humor to this too-serious subject. The Science Fiction/Fantasy community has honored him with two Nebulas (1989 short story "Bible Stories for Adults #17: The Deluge" and 1990 novella City
of Truth)
and a World Fantasy Award (1990 Only Begotten Daughter.) In this interview from his home in State College, Pennsylvania, Morrow discusses his debt to the SF/F community, scientific humanism, organized religion, the literary roots of his stories, and the difficulties of addressing the "big questions" in satire. (Read more.)
Sex, bootlegged booze, beautiful women, and powerful men set against the steamy backdrop of corruption in New Orleans in the roaring twenties. This is the stuff of which exciting novels are made. But, as in many cases, truth is more compelling than fiction. Christine Wiltz is a mystery writer with four novels under her belt: Glass House, The Emerald Lizard, A Diamond Before You Die, and The Killing Circle all set in her native New Orleans. When asked to write the biography of
Norma Wallace,
a powerful ambitious woman who ran one of the most notorious houses of prostitution in the French Quarter for over forty years, Wiltz decided to give non-fiction a try. She combined her mystery writing skills and deep affection for her native city in a real-life thriller, The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld. Wiltz deftly unravels the mystery of the woman behind the glamour of the madam; setting us up with Norma's violent death in Chapter One, then spending the rest of the book answering
the proverbial
questions of "Whodunit?" and, more importantly, "Why?" (Read more.)
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