Category: Uncategorized

Karen’s new novel to be published in 2021

I have the most wonderful news. My new novel, Arborview, will be published next year.

Yes, you heard right. The contract has been signed. Final edits are underway, and so is the cover design. The Wild Rose Press, a well established and growing publisher, has purchased the rights, and I’m working with a super supportive and generous editor.

I’m still pinching myself. It’s a magical way to kick off the holiday season, and some good news to cap off a year that’s been so difficult for all of us.

I don’t have a release date yet, but it will be in 2021, and I’ll keep you all posted. While I’m on that theme, I want to thank the friends and colleagues who’ve helped me bring this book–which has been in the works for six years–to life. They know who they are, and I’ve got a hefty “Acknowledgements” section in the novel.

It goes without saying that Cathy has been on this ride from the beginning, through multiple revisions and moments of hair-tearing doubt. She is irreplaceable, and the best editor I’ll ever have. I’m not going to say I love her, because she already knows it.

Writing a novel is like running a marathon. You dig deep and push with all you have. Now we’re crossing the finish line.

It isn’t every day dreams come true. Thanks for being part of mine.

Here’s hoping the blessings of the holiday season–large and small–bring us all comfort this year.

–Karen

A good, good sound

Friends,

A belated sharing of my recent Collegeville essay. I hope everyone is staying smart and staying safe. As we move towards a holiday season that promises to be like no other, remember: different doesn’t have to be less than. Unexpected blessings may unfold….and soon…

A Good, Good Sound

–Karen

No friends like old friends (publishing together!)

Hi All,

Cathy and I have some great—and most unexpected—news! Next year we’ll have short stories published in the same issue of Gargoyle Magazine. Not only are we thrilled to be appearing in this esteemed literary journal, we are amused and deeply grateful to appear side-by-side in print.

gargoyle

We’ve been friends for—gulp—thirty years. We’re former roommates. We puzzled our way through an MFA program together. We entered the publishing trenches. All along, we’ve edited and listened and supported each other. Cathy has been instrumental in my growth as a writer, and I think I’ve come in pretty handy for her, too. There are no friends like old friends.

Cathy and I will be saving Gargoyle’s Issue #74, scheduled to be out around Labor Day, for our grandchildren. We hope you’ll enjoy it, too!

–Karen

 

How to START writing a novel

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Summertime. The days are long and lovely, and the grill is fired up.

But what’s that? You say the time has come, at last, to write your novel. You’ve got a story. You want to tell it. You just have one question:  how, in the name of all that’s sane and just, do you begin?

chapter 1

Good question. And you’re in luck. Best-selling novelist Michelle Richmond addresses this very thing in a recent blog post. I’m always happy to plug Michelle, because she runs the small press that published my debut a few years back, and because she’s a super helpful and compassionate human being. She’s also a true friend to writers, whatever their career stage.

A snippet from Michelle on diving into the novel waters:

“Get past thinking, ‘I’m writing a novel.’ Instead, tell yourself, ‘I’m writing a few words today’ or ‘I’m writing a piece of my novel today.’ Writing a novel is a daunting challenge and a major, time-consuming endeavor. Looking from the starting line to the finish line, miles away, can be mentally paralyzing. The only way to start your novel without psyching yourself out is to break it up into small, daily tasks. Approach each day as a mini-project, not a major project. The mini-project is your scene, your chapter, or your page for that day.” Read the rest.

Good luck, friends, and be gentle with yourself. You’re embarking on a courageous journey.

write your book

–Karen

 

Essay for a new day

I’ve been a journalist and a fiction writer. But essays? Not since school, and that was more, well, academic in nature.

I don’t know exactly what possessed me when I learned the Collegeville Institute was looking to build up its stable of freelance essay writers. I love the Collegeville Institute and its mission, and I think my heart just leapt at the prospect of being a part of it.

I’m thrilled to have published my latest this month. Take a look. I think the photo they chose way overshadows my essay, but in a good way.

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Essay writing has been such a gift. It’s an unexpected platform, one whose benefits and challenges I am just beginning to understand. I feel lucky, blessed, to have stumbled upon this opportunity to write—in a different way—about the things that move, and resonate with, me.

The “me” part is a big leap. Writing as yourself—for fiction writers—can be a bit unnerving. But it can also be liberating and empowering. One of the reasons we write in the first place, I think, is to have the sheer pleasure, to experience the power, of matching our thoughts with just the right words. The pleasure of saying what you mean.

Essays are challenging in different ways than fiction. But some of the benefits are similar. They help me think through issues and sharpen and organize my understanding. In a nutshell, they help me make sense of it all. Isn’t that what writing is for?

Anyone else out there dabbling in a new different genre? Let us know.

Write well, friends.
–Karen

Take heart and keep writing

I came across the loveliest quote today that I want to share with all my writer friends who are toiling away over manuscripts, many of them in some form of lock-down. Ironies abound there, but we’ll set them aside.

This quote comes courtesy of the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. It’s a comment from the great storyteller Katherine Paterson. I love its humility and its profound truthfulness.

I know my gift is limited. I know I cannot stand toe-to-toe with philosophers or theologians and solve for myself or anyone else the problem of evil, either natural or moral. But we who are writers can tell a story or write a poem, and where rational argument will always fail, somehow, miraculously, in metaphor and simile and image and simple narrative, there is both healing and illumination.

Take heart, friends. Keep writing to and for each other. It’s a great thing we do, even if it doesn’t always seem so.

— Karen

 

Write (or Not) Despite

—From Cathy

So…how you holding up out there?

Karen and I did a check-in with each other yesterday. An honest-to-god phone call. Not email. And it was lovely hearing her voice – and having a full-on bitch session about all that’s happening right now. Believe me when I tell you: Karen and I perfected marathon bitch sessions. We practiced lots when we were roommates in college.

imageSailors would cover their ears. Just saying.

Anyway, are you doing the same? Taking care of yourselves physically and mentally, and do you have a support system to reach out to?

You do. If you’re reading this, you do.

Please let us know how you’re coping during this far-fetched alternate universe we find ourselves in now.

Are you writing?

Personally, when it comes to writing fiction, I can’t even. Maybe because:

  • Reality seems so fictionalized right now that I’m unable to dream up anything on my own, or
  • I can’t imagine the characters I’ve been developing so long living in the particular world we’re in right now, or
  • I don’t want to imagine them there, or
  • I can’t picture them in a normal world either.

So, I find myself stuck.

A1lUEn3EH3L._AC_UY218_ML3_Anne Tyler has a new book out. She’s my fave, so of course I’ve read it already. (Redhead By the Side of the Road—it’s a good one. Check it out.)

Tyler’s given numerous interviews about the book, and of course the COVID question pops up, and here’s what she had to say about writing at this time:

“For the first few days, I seemed to keep writing the same three pages over and over again. I just had a general feeling of distractedness. Eventually, though, I did sink back into my work. I happened to be writing about an Easter dinner with a lot of people attending, some of them behaving a bit snarkily with each other. I thought, Oh, now I remember why I write. I write because it makes me happy.”

I guess that’s the key. Write if you can, because it makes you happy. And, in a blessed stroke of luck, what you write will hopefully make others happy too when it makes its way into the world.

onward-cover3Speaking of which, since I’m unable to write, I’ve been focusing on submitting. And I’m happy to say my story “Gently Used” is now up on Wordrunner’s Onward anthology. Yay.

So, if you’re like me and you can’t write, read. Or submit. Or call a friend, zoom with your mom, walk the dog. Do what makes you happy.

Please know we’re pulling for you, and sending you all the positive vibes you need to write despite—all of it. We wish you good health and enough peace and comfort in your lives to keep writing, always.

In the beginning

The first 10 pages make or break your novel manuscript. Why? Well, as we’ve all been told (and in truth have probably experienced), no one reads beyond them if they’re not great.

And that goes double for agents and editors, who are wondering how they’re going to sell the thing.

In other words, your opening has to rock. I’m overhauling mine for the umpteenth time right now, and it’s moving along. Something is happening. It’s kicking and wiggling and strutting a bit. But rocking? I dunno.

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I come now seeking advice. What hooks you in a novel’s opening pages? What makes you keep reading? What turns you off? Please share in our “comments” section.

Cathy has already weighed in, of course, and her advice—as usual—was spot on. Cathy has a new publication of her own, just out this week. The opening of her novel-in-progress is featured in Embark: A Literary Journal for Novelists. This nifty journal is dedicated to novel openings, and it’s becoming a go-to for agents seeking new clients. Congrats, Cath! Check out her piece. It’s going to grow into one helluva book.

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Write Well, Friends and Happy New Year

–Karen

Last-Minute Gifts, Anyone?

Well, we’re super late with this post, but for those of you who are still shopping (and yes, count us in), we decided to list 10 books we dearly love and frequently give to friends and family. So, if you’re still looking for ideas, you’re welcome. And happy holidays, everyone!!!!images

From Cathy

These are all books I’ve given, some over and over again, in no particular order.

  1. Fair and Tender Ladies (Lee Smith) – You won’t forget Ivy Rowe and her story, written entirely in letter form. ‘
  2. The Christmas Letters (Lee Smith) -Another Lee Smith book of letters, this one just perfect for the holidays.
  3. The Accidental Tourist (Anne Tyler) – If I had to pick a favorite book (please don’t make me), this one, this one.
  4. On Writing (Stephen King) – Best down-to-earth advice on the craft I’ve read.
  5. State of Wonder (Ann Patchett) – Oh, what a ride. Scientist heads to the Amazon to find a researcher and uncovers a mystery of sorts. But, yeah, SO much more.
  6. Single, Carefree, Mellow (Katherine Heiny) – This little gem of a short story collection about dating and love and friendship is spot-on funny, sad and smart.
  7. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris) – Love so many of David Sedaris’s books, but this is the one I’ve given out the most.
  8. Turtle Moon (Alice Hoffman) – My first experience with Alice Hoffman, and the one I still think about all the time. Love her!
  9. The Humans (Matt Haig) – Read this with my book group and I’ve given it to my son and others to enjoy. Wish they’d make a movie of this curious alien who comes to earth and just can’t figure out the human race.
  10. Where I’m Calling From (Raymond Carver) – My go-to, rarely leave home without it, collection of stories by the master! If you’ve never read “Fat” or “A Small, Good Thing,” you’re truly missing out.

From Karen

So, I took a different route. I decided to focus on children’s books that I loved when I was in elementary school. I’ve given some as gifts, and encouraged other parents to check them out. These books are all for, I’d say, fourth grade and up. As you can see, I was a child obsessed with animals. Now, I’m an adult obsessed with animals.

  1. Hurry Home Candy, by Meindert DeJong – Probably my all-time favorite. A sweet little dog lost in a world of cruel people!!! This is an outstanding children’s story, sophisticated, compassionate, evocative. I bought a new copy and I’m reading it with my son.
  2. Julie of the Wolves, Meindert DeJong – Anything with wolves, I was in.
  3. The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlins – I read this Pulitzer-Prize winning novel too young, but it made a major impression on me, with the beautifully detailed relationship between the boy and his fawn, and the descriptions of the natural world. Plus [SPOLER!] the deer dies at the end, which killed me.
  4. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington – Okay, this is a weird pick. I discoveredit on a bookshelf in my parents’ house and read it alone at night in bed. I don’t know why I was drawn to it. I think I think it was the vivid descriptions and well- drawn characters. The larger themes of this novel sailed well above my head!
  5. Along Came a Dog by Meindert DeJong – Yep, Meindert was my go-to guy. Loved his books.
  6. The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong – Even read a book about people, just because Meindert wrote it. The illustrations by Maurice Sendak helped, too. What a team, they were.
  7. Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry – Who wouldn’t want to tame a wild pony and get her foal as a bonus?
  8. Big Red, by Jim Kjelgaard – A dog in trouble? I’m there.
  9. Snow Dog, Jim Kjelgaard – I’ve always had a soft spot for Huskies. Must be the wolf-thing.
  10. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell – A horse who suffers nobly and needs saving! Like crack to my kiddie brain.

 

 

Flash of Inspiration

—From Cathy

Keep it short. Cut to the chase. Spit it out. Just the facts, ma’am.

I’ve long been a long-winded writer, and have adhered to exactly none of these suggestions. Until I tried writing flash fiction.

FlashIt started with a workshop run by Kathy Fish (known widely, especially on Twitter, as The Great Kathy Fish), which was a game changer. Her workshops offer one inspiring prompt to write from, every day, for 10 days, and they introduce you to a whole group of writers who give support and encouragement. Pieces can be no more than 1,000 words. Sometimes less. You may have to choose from a list of words to include, or an object or image.

I went into this class utterly baffled by how to write such short pieces, but dove in and  felt my way through. And I’ve gotten a few decent stories from it. And hey, here’s one of them that was just pubbed on Pithead Chapel this month!PC

Have you tried flash? If not, and you’re as puzzled by it as I was, or even if you’re a seasoned pro, here’s one of the best articles I’ve found for how it works:

The Review Review – Flash Fiction: What’s It All About?

Once you’ve chopped and sharpened and shined up those stories, here are some great journals, several of which sponsor flash contests, to submit them to.

Give it a try! And remember, brevity is the sole of wit. And, uh, never use two words when one will do. And…okay, I’ll cut it short. Write well, everyone!

Journals:

Brevity

Every Day Fiction

Flash Fiction Magazine

Flash Fiction Online

Hobart

Jellfyfish Review

Pank

Pithead Chapel

Smokelong Quarterly

Wigleaf