I’m grateful to friend and author Marnie Cate for inspiring this post and hosting it on her lovely website a few weeks ago. When I first visited Marnie’s site, I noticed that her work concerns magic and the paranormal. I had to admit off the bat that, by contrast, I am primarily drawn to realism. However, […]
Jul 27 2015
MUSIC — The ULTIMATE INSPIRATION
Many thanks to Dawn Brazil, an author and all-round great person, who not only provided the inspiration for this post but also shared it first on her blog, Dawn Brazil’s Brilliant Babbles about Books — When I first visited Dawn’s website several weeks ago, I was impressed with her use of music: music video clips, […]
Jul 23 2015
Mistakes to Avoid in Short Story Writing
This post by friend and author Anne Leigh Parrish first appeared on Women Writers, Women’s Books on December 15, 2014. Thanks for sharing, Anne! As the fiction editor for Eclectica Magazine, it’s been both a privilege and pleasure to read story submissions. Finding the handful of pieces that take my breath away is what it’s […]
Jun 17 2015
WISHING CROSS STATION: A New Novel & Its Author, February Grace
February Grace is an author, poet, and artist from Southeast Michigan. In previous novels, she has introduced readers to characters with clockwork hearts, told of romantic modern-day fairy godparents, and reimagined a legend, centuries old. Now, in her fifth novel with Booktrope, readers will board the special at WISHING CROSS STATION and embark on a […]
Dec 8 2014
Got Holiday Shopping to Finish? REVIEWS & RECOMMENDATIONS
In the mid-1990s (way back in my early childhood—lol), I completed a graduate program in Russian literature. To prepare for comprehensive exams, I devoted three years to reading my way through a list of novels, short stories, and poems by such luminaries as Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and others. Once I had passed the exams […]