Not to get all Freudian, but last night I woke gasping for breath (repeatedly), paralyzed with fear, riding waves of Donald Trump smothering me. The nightmare stapled me to the bed. (And, I know if he read this, he’d say I wasn’t even close to being good-looking enough for him to nightmare me.) Women … Read more
With every listen, the Trump sex assault tape sounds worse. Every syllable engenders feelings of being small and wretched and humiliated. I search for the genesis of these emotions, for the source of my desire to curl up into an invisible ball. And the truths wash in: The time my neighbor’s boyfriend covered my six-year-old … Read more
I’ve been mid-book since my addiction began at age four and I pray to have a TBR stack until the moment I die. On that heap I want it all: pounding plots, the wow of discovery, the comfort of recognition, and astounding characters. If I’m lucky, some will have all of the above. Whichever book … Read more
There’s a reason more people understand the Holocaust from The Diary of Ann Frankthan from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Story. Since the cave man days we’ve learned more history through storytelling than textbooks. I know I have. Writing a novel that includes social, health or political issues carries great responsibility. We … Read more
“My agent and editor started talking about ‘the list’ from the start, virtually ensuring that I’d consider myself a failure if I didn’t make it. At first, when they talked about it, I didn’t even know what “the list” was—didn’t know there was truly only one ‘list.’ “You must stay drunk on writing so … Read more