Dean Robertson's Blog, page 3

Writing: Playing Scales; Practice, Practice, Practice

    Two novels completed. Not one viable idea for a next book. I find I can’t simply take a break. I am now no longer capable of not writing.  And so, the question arises. What in-between writing can I find this time to keep my hand in, to keep my brain fresh, to operate [...]

From the South of France to the West Side of Manhattan, With Love: Joseph Raffael’s Jewels

(Golden Heart, 2016, watercolor on paper, 15 1/4 x 17 3/4 inches)   If you go to the website for the Nancy Hoffman Gallery, then click “Exhibitions,” you will find that from October 26 through December 9 2017 there will be an exhibit of the small-format watercolors that Joseph Raffael has been painting for the [...]

“Giving Paws: Having a Service Dog for a Hidden Disability” Martha L. Thompson tells her story

      Martha L. Thompson’s book, Giving Paws: Having a Service Dog for a Hidden Disability, is a book about one woman’s discovery of her own soul as it comes, again and again, to a choice between struggle and surrender. There are a good many important things to write about Thompson’s book, and this review intends [...]

Writing: What Kind of Cook Are You?

      From Amazon’s Patricia Allison Page: The first novel co-authored by Alison Daniels and Dean Robertson writing as Patricia Allison The second novel, by Alison Daniels, writing as Patricia Allison The third novel, by Dean Robertson writing as Patricia Allison The fourth novel by Alison Daniels writing as Patricia Allison Coming in 2018 [...]

Sheila Dinwiddie: Riding the Ring of Years, The Full Text

   “Riding the Ring of Years” The Full Text       She stepped outside her door She stepped outside her door morning paper early, into a world made private by the sleepers inside, her heart’s hope chest     locked away            airtight. stepped into an apple green April day when the clear air stopped [...]

Sheila Dinwiddie, Riding the Ring of Years: The Full Text

     Sheila Moran Dinwiddie Riding the Ring of Years   She stepped outside her door She stepped outside her door morning paper early, into a world made private by the sleepers inside, her heart’s hope chest     locked away            airtight. stepped into an apple green April day when the clear air stopped her, [...]

At the Kitchen Table with Sheila Moran Dinwiddie: “You” and Other Poems

(From a drawing by Beverly Furman Partisan Press 1997)   In the program for the 2015 Works-in-Progress Conference at Virginia Wesleyan University, Sheila Moran Dinwiddie described herself as a “kitchen table poet.” When I asked what she meant by that, her answer was. “I wrote at home, in the midst of kids and everything that [...]

Handing Over the Reins: Entering The Strange World of Fiction Writing

A Catalogue of Books by Patricia Allison. Memory Is The Seamstress. By Dean Robertson and Alison Daniels, writing as Patricia Allison. Available on Amazon.     Fortune’s End. By Alison Daniels, writing as Patricia Allison. Available on Amazon.     Jessie:The Adventures and Insights of a Nineteenth-Century Woman. By Dean Robertson, writing as Patricia Allison. Available soon [...]

Two Smart Women Discuss Writing–#2: Chapters Eight through Thirty-Eight, In Which They Finish a Novel and Eeyore Thinks Things Over

By Dean Robertson 11 March 2017: The first emails begin.  Three months ago. 7 April 2017: The first blog. We have written seven chapters.  Two months ago. 8 April-1 June: We write thirty-one more chapters, edit, re-edit, and fight over the entire thirty-eight.  We abandon the project many times. We finish the novel. 13 June 2017: We publish the novel. [...]

Two Smart Women Discuss Writing–#1 by Alison Daniels: Reviving a Dead Dream

By Alison Daniels The Brief History of a Writer of Fiction I always wanted to write fiction. I remember, somewhere around the age of five, writing my own little versions of the stories of some of the great operas (as told to me by grandfather), complete with illustrations. I wrote in block lettering, stapled them [...]