Category Archives: On Writing
Own Your Opinions, Kids
One of my children told me recently that he couldn’t ever be a reviewer — of books, art, restaurants, or a sports columnist — because he didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings. (Never mind that just a few weeks before, … Continue reading
What does a novel’s interior design say about its characters?
Do settings reflect the mood of a novel? Or do settings set the mood? I’m not being cute, in a chicken-and-egg sort of way. Clearly in some books the environment and dwellings play just a bit part, while in others … Continue reading
Does Publishing A Novel Change Your Life?
My book’s launch party felt a little like a wedding. Well, one where my five children had already been born, and were racing around jacked up on chocolate-dipped strawberries. The bash was in an old brownstone in Boston. There was … Continue reading
Novel Catharsis
The day I accidentally started my novel, there was a torrential downpour. I remember sitting in the car waiting to pick up my children from preschool, rain streaming down the windshield. Like tears, I thought. And out of nowhere—because they’re … Continue reading
Author One-on-One: Nichole Bernier and Dani Shapiro
Dani Shapiro: This is your first novel after years of being a magazine editor and writer. What made you decide to write this story? Joan Didion describes material she wants to write as having “a shimmer” around its edges. What … Continue reading
The One Who Won’t See It
I saw the first copy of my hardcover the other day. I won’t have it in-hand until next week, but my publisher needed a mockup for a magazine photo shoot. So the jpg appeared in my inbox, cheeky as the … Continue reading
Unexcused Absence
Last night I dreamed I was back at high school and — who hasn’t had this dream? —that I’d missed an entire semester of classes. I don’t remember whether I was naked, the usual insult to injury. But I had … Continue reading
Say What You Mean To Say
Words matter. They matter whether you say them or write them, because you never know how you might impact someone. And words don’t have an expiration date. That was the message of a blog post (http://beyondthemargins NULL.com/2012/04/the-power-of-words/) by a colleague of mine … Continue reading
On Rejection and the Beautiful Blueberry
I was not in the best of moods the other morning. It was gray and sleeting, and I’m guilty of letting weather affect me. The to-do list seemed overwhelming, and the calendar said there were to be no babysitting hours … Continue reading
The Juggling Act
I was once asked this question in an advice column for writers on their way toward agents and book contracts. “How do people just write, then pause, make dinner and whatnot, and then go back to writing?” Maybe it was … Continue reading
