It's tempting to believe that novelists who have already published books know “the secret.” But every novel, whether it's your first or
Read MoreContemporary Fiction
On Horses, My New Book Cover, and Coming Full Circle
My dad was a Navy officer, yet he was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas when I was eleven years old. Yes, Kansas: not exactly a seafaring
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How One Coach Got Me Off the Couch—and Inspired My Writing
I'm the mother of three champion long distance runners. I honestly don't know how that happened, since I was never a runner. But I showed up at almost
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When Writing, Sometimes All You Can Do Is Jump
The most important thing every writer has to do is take a leap of faith. What does that mean, exactly? That, no matter how stuck you are at the
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Author Yona Zeldis McDonough Talks about Lucky Breaks and Following Your Writing Instincts
Yona Zeldis McDonough is the author of seven novels for adults. She is also an award-winning children’s book author with 26 children’s books to her
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Vow to Write Better, Not Faster in 2016, Despite Our Binge-Loving Culture
Recently, I was skimming the front pages of the New York Times book review when I caught this item: Jonathan Safran Foer's new novel,
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Who’s Telling the Story? A Crash Course on Points of View
I've been writing fiction for many years now. Each book poses new stumbling blocks. Inevitably, though, the question that always plagues me
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What Happened When My Characters Hijacked My Novel
I write emotional family mysteries, the sort of fiction where the characters suffer through freakin' horrible crises:
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Celebrating a 20th Wedding Anniversary and a New Book: What Marriage Has Taught Me about Creativity
This week is a big one for me. I'm celebrating both the launch of Chance Harbor, my fourth novel with Penguin Random House, and my twentieth wedding
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