11 Things NOT To Do When Your Book Launches
By M.J. Rose Sometimes what you mustn’t do is just as just as important as what you must do. I’ve had a dozen novels published and have made far more
October 7, 2012
First Lines; Last Lines: A Fine Balance in Books
The perfect first line. How we chase it, scrambling phrases and our brains, seeking magic words to pop open our stories like magic keys.( Sometimes I want to create
September 17, 2012
The Bobbsey Twins, Anomie, Schadenfreude, and Growing up in Brooklyn
I suppose they were meant to teach me reading skills. And the goodness of clean living. But what The Bobbsey Twins taught me was needle sharp envy. Freddie and Flossie
September 9, 2012
Talismanic Objects
My dear friend and neighbor, Linda, sent me this rubber duck, which she made into a duck reading my book. Reading Duck oversees the bathroom and cannot be moved. If
September 2, 2012
Writing the Motherhood Uglies
“At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your
August 22, 2012
Pushed out of the Age Closet
In the weeks before my debut novel released, I resembled a child anticipating her jump from single digit birthdays to the doubles: 10! I could barely sleep—my husband groaned as
August 13, 2012
Beauty By The Book (or how I learned to put on some damn blush)
Everyone has something that keeps them going when nothing else will do. For some it’s cupcakes. Others choose wine. My husband has football. I have beauty magazines. I’m not exactly
August 6, 2012
Avoiding The Yada, Yada, Yada (in books)
I’m wiggling back into my new novel, and like many complicated tasks—knitting a sweater for an elephant, cooking a gluten-free banquet for four hundred vegans—I need to regain my rhythm
July 29, 2012
No Villains, No Heroes
“In the airport, coming home from vacation, he stops at a kiosk and buys grapefruits, which he arranges to have sent to his daughters. They will stumble over the crates
July 24, 2012
Romantic or Realistic: The Bad Boy Quiz
Awhile ago I wrote my warning about falling for the ‘bad boy.’ Now it’s time to figure out if you have one lying next to you. And what kind. You
July 4, 2012
Real Life: What I Keep & What I Leave Behind When I Write.
“But it really happened.” I was in an adult-ed writer’s group when I first heard this. I’d watched the woman speaking become tenser and grimmer as members of the group—gently
June 6, 2012
Book Trailers: Do They Work?
Do book trailers sell books? Is that the question, or should you ask which book trailer could help sell my book? Trailers aren’t monolithic products that work or don’t. Like books,
April 27, 2012
Writing (and Reading) About Sex
I tried to think of a, um, sexier title for this post, but they all sounded, um, icky, and the last thing I want when I’m writing about sex is
April 13, 2012
Why I Write
When I was a kid, nothing was better than listening to my Aunt Thelma’s stories. She’d take humiliating awful situations and transform them into eye-popping, comic-tragic tales. Her pain was
April 9, 2012
Contraception & The VIDA COUNT: The Nightmare Connection
I woke up (just moments ago) with the proverbial pounding three am heart. I had a nightmare about trying to convince unresponsive authorities about young girls being attacked. The specifics
March 6, 2012
Sad Songs? Yo-yo love? Love to love ya, baby? What kind of Valentine do you have?
These are the many types of relationships I’ve had: Sad. Obsessive. Pathetic. Boring. Are you kidding me? “Do you think he has a drinking problem?” Liar, liar, pant’s on fire.
February 14, 2012
How Things Can Change: Looking Forward to Valentine’s Day
It’s sure nice to have love where it’s not the sad songs that provide the theme. Thank you, Jeff.
February 9, 2012
Hey Girl, Don’t Worry, I’ll Cook Dinner
By Dell Smith Beyond the Margins finally persuaded Dell Smith’s good friend Ryan Gosling to take time out of his busy schedule as an Internet meme to shine a little love our way. Give it up
January 30, 2012
Book Titles: The Inside Scoop
“My definition (for myself) of a working title is: A title that doesn’t work.” Robin Black Picture having a baby. You named that baby so soon after conception. Dear
January 24, 2012
The (Home) Walk of Shame: Work-at-Home-Clothes
It’s funny how folks who work at home (writers, painters, composers, phone-sex workers, though not those who use Skype visuals) will so often use “working in my pajamas! as their
January 4, 2012
DIAMOND RUBY (I already want to re-read it)
The only thing I didn’t love about Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace was finishing it, because then it was over and I had to leave her world. Lucky you, you
November 28, 2011
Books That Haunt
Halloween is all about haunting. The unrelenting hold of ghosts. The unbearable-to-resist sweetness of candy. Ghosts that haunt are products of the living: relatives dead and alive, past loves, remembered
October 27, 2011
Fasting Against the Violence at Home
I’ve worked with men who battered their wives, their girlfriends, their sisters, and sometimes their mothers. For almost ten years, I listened to their stories as they admitted bullying,
October 18, 2011
Nobody Kills For Love
Every now and then an article leaps out of the paper and punches me in the chest. (Actually, this should probably happen with 90% of the articles printed. Sometimes I
September 29, 2011