Bottoming Out Memoirs
I am not done weighing in about memoirs. While hiking on a neighbor’s land, it came to me that to create emotional resonance in a reader is a lot harder for a fiction-writer. Why?
Delphinium Books Blog
Writers and Rage
In my spare time, when I am not reading manuscripts, I am reading a wonderful memoir called H is for Hawk by the English writer Helen Macdonald. The book distinguishes itself from most memoirs of grief because it focuses on an activity — falconry — and relies on this fascinating pastime to give the reader a profound understanding of the author’s loss of her beloved father. [Read more…]
Is The Girl On the Train the new Gone Girl?
I am rooting for the female novelists. If most of the die-hard novel readers are women, then surely women writers should always be occupying the top tier of the fiction best seller lists. They should be able to wrestle the #1 and #2 spots away from the likes of John Grisham and James Patterson. [Read more…]
Oliver Sacks, Artistic vision and Enlightenment
I recently posted on Twitter and Facebook an essay by Oliver Sacks that described his end-of-life struggles (invariable for us all), recounted with bittersweet resignation. Sacks expressed his gratitude for being given a life of rewarding work as well as the unusual aptitude to understand the complex, mysterious and often misconstrued workings of the human brain.
Reading Dostoyevsky: Advice for Writers from a Writer
Many novelists shut down on reading fiction while they are at work on a book. Some fear that the voice of an author whom they admire might influence their voice, thereby weakening its sound and effect. I am the opposite. [Read more…]
Is 55 Years Worth The Wait?
Harper Lee’s New Novel
I am amazed at how much media attention has been focused on the summer 2015 publication of Harper Lee’s follow-up novel to To Kill A Mockingbird. The new book is to be called Go Set A Watchman, and this title seems somewhat clumsy in comparison to Lee’s beloved novel that is a staple of secondary school education in the United States as well as internationally.
Guess how much a 6-month royalty check pays for a book that was published in 1960?
