How’s this for serendipity? When I met conference keynoter Padma Venkatraman at the James River Writers conference in October 2016,…
This month I attended two writers’ conferences—James River Writers and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Mid-Atlantic Regional—and…
One day when I was about eight years old and a friend’s mom was driving the carpool, she drove off…
This week’s Writing Show, “Editing for Emotional Impact,” presented by James River Writers, was like a cornucopia of craft tips,…
This month, I caught up with Ruta Sepetys, recently home from a two-month book tour for her latest…
People often ask writers: where do you get the ideas for your stories? And I say: ideas. Blah. So overrated.…
When I was a student in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I heard Jane Kurtz, the…
Last week, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley won the Newbery Honor Award for her middle grade novel, The War that Saved my Life, and just this…
For months I’ve been trying to find the right opening for the novel I started in 2013, and I think…
Over this past summer, friends gave me these comments on the draft of a new YA novel: “I’m confused here. Are the…