I am three months away from publication of my memoir, Under the Birch Tree, published by She Writes Press. To be honest, I feel as though I’m hurrying up to wait. While indulging in the need to be doing something, I absorb social media, from Facebook to Pinterest and all media in between. I take notice of my fellow authors’ posts, their follower numbers, [...]
Choices abound when it comes to how we purchase books. But, the way you purchase books makes a difference for the author, local community and the future of publishing. Check out this link from She Writes Press for what you need to consider before purchasing your next book. Why Buy Direct
“And then there was my birch buddy, never failing to wave in the picture window with its branches posing like an umbrella over our reflection, providing peace in the silence and innocence of child and home.” When I was a little girl, I remember sitting on my Dad’s lap in the wingback chair in the living room after dinner. We sat snuggly in [...]
There's nothing more defining for an author when the cover of your book presents itself. You see the fruits of your hard labor, perhaps years of stops and starts in writing, nurturing a love - hate relationship with what is an original creation. The protector of your words, the shield to your thoughts, your cover caps the binding of your [...]
“The Deerfield Commons, it used to be over there, that entire block, with Waukegan and Deerfield roads fencing it in,” I muttered with a heavy sigh looking west as I drove north on Waukegan Road. I say it when I drive into Deerfield, the town where I grew up as I relive the memories of years passed. “This was the [...]
My essay is for all you memoir writers who speak to the conversation in your head as I have done when writing my memoir.
I seized an essay from my slush pile. I remember when I wrote the following; its history born from emotion. I was approaching the age of 40, not working full time and I was only a couple of drafts into my memoir when a critique of my manuscript told me fancy terms such as through-threads and theme, reflections and takeaways [...]
Home. A physical place or a state of being. It can even have emotions. Linear or ever-changing, it may travel like a river with ebbs and flows. Or maybe it is elusive. My memoir read like an autobiography. I was clear as I spewed vivid memories and recalled markers attained as my decades rolled on by. But I wasn’t clear [...]
My decision to leave my hometown of Chicago came without lengthy contemplation. After three unemployments in six years during my budding advertising career post college and eighteen months working in corporate banking, the city turned its back by not bestowing its wealth. My weary footsteps had marked every city corner, intersection, advertising and employment agency during my interviews and [...]
I wrote a memoir – 10 years ago – and then I rewrote it and then rewrote again, yet another rewrite and then wrote more. I acted on 5 professional critiques over those years as impetus for my rewrites. And I use the term “rewrite” loosely. I could easily make these changes – deleting information that has no reason to [...]