Hope everyone found a small piece of joy during the holidays.We spent a quiet Christmas at home with the beasts (two cats and a dog, all aging, all with health and personality quirks), watching movies and reading. It was peaceful and serene, and I was so happy that I baked a loaf of bread. There’s something… Read More Pushcart Prize nomination plus another mention
I don’t normally do cover reveals. It’s not that I have anything against them. It’s just not the direction I usually take. But this cover reveal is special. It belongs to YA author Nikki Jefford. Nikki and I briefly worked at Anchorage Daily News together years ago. It didn’t take long for her to realize that journalism wasn’t… Read More “Stakeout” cover reveal
I first met Lynn Lovegreen earlier this summer at an author’s talk. Although we were Facebook and Twitter friends, we had never actually met in person (isn’t it funny how that happens?). I liked her immediately, liked how soft-spoken yet firm she was, and I especially liked how her face lit up whenever she talked about writing… Read More Why write about the Alaska Gold Rush?
I’m on the last half of the last chapter of my second novel Waiting For My Daughter’s Ghost and I’m stuck, I’m flailing. I have no idea what I’m doing. It suddenly strikes me at how enormous this all is, creating an imaginary world and then populating it with people, building relationships and then guiding those… Read More Why is it so hard to write a novel?
I read this in the newspaper today and can’t get it out of my mind. It sounds like something from a Stephen King novel. In fact, it reminds me of that scene in “The Stand” when the Dark Man cooks up a rabbit out in the desert. Only this happened in Denali National Park. And it wasn’t a rabbit someone… Read More A bizarre bit of Alaska
Things are going well in my very small corner of the writing world. Last Sunday Anchorage Daily News ran an article about my Best American Sports Writing essay, The Prayer of an Alaskan Runner. (Complete with the picture of me with The Beebs.) Friday I learned that my essay Running was chosen as a Notable… Read More More writing news, and a little bit of Joyce Carol Oates
I can’t remember when I first came across Kevin Brennan. Perhaps he commented on my blog or I read a comment he made on another blog. Whatever the case, I soon found his site, “What the Hell,” and discovered his book of short shorts Our Children Are Not Our Children. From the first line I was… Read More Author interview with Kevin Brennan
I can’t finish my second novel, Waiting For My Daughter’s Ghost. I have it written and edited, up to the last chapter. I even have the last chapter outlined and more than enough segments in rough-draft to basically finish the book, but I can’t do it. For the longest time I wondered why: Why was I balking? Why didn’t I… Read More Why I can’t finish my novel
Do you have a manuscript ready to submit but don’t know which agent to target? According to Chuck Sambuchino over at Writer’s Digest “Guide to Literary Agents,” new literary agent Adam Muhlig of McIntose & Otis, seeks clients. What he seeks: Muhlig is looking for fresh voices in fiction and narrative nonfiction. “He seeks authors of books… Read More Need a literary agent?
I remember in college reading Hegel (okay, I didn’t really read–mostly I just skimmed), and how the pendulum swings in one direction and back in the next, and that this variance was good for the world’s soul. I’m not sure how Hegel meant this to be interpreted but I saw it as karma. Or, in the philosophy… Read More Two more publications, and another rejection
Cinthia Ritchie 