Chris Abouzeid's Blog, page 25

Do We Need More Books About Books?

By Bethanne Patrick I wondered when the backlash would start. No, I’m not talking about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s hijinks, or reactions to Jimmy Fallon’s debut at host of The Tonight Show–I’m talking about bookish books about books and bookish people who love them. As soon as I saw ...

The Secret Life of Bestseller Lists

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” Ray Bradbury  By Randy Susan Meyers “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 ...

Up Close and Virtually In Person

  By Juliette Fay I had been “visiting” book groups by phone for years. I’m always happy to do this—it never gets old hearing that people who are unrelated to me and don’t owe me favors chose one of my books over millions of others to read and discuss. Also, ...

Making Room for the New

  By Kathy Crowley On New Year’s Eve day I had lunch with a good friend who is a writer.  She writes mostly essays, a form that beautifully joins her love of language with her intellectual and academic interests.  During the years I’ve known her, though, she’s also had another ...

A Year’s Reading

By Harvey Freedenberg If you review any sizable number of books, as I do, inevitably at the end of each year someone will ask you to compile a “Best of” list. Although I covered sixty-eight books in 2013, forty-seven of them novels or short story collections, I agree with Janet ...

Writing Outside Your Generation

By Dell Smith [Photo by ErwanLB] I’m currently writing a novel featuring four siblings that are ages eighteen through twenty-eight. This is not a memoir; I’m in my late forties. I am not any of these characters. I’ve probably more in common with the character of their father, although I’ve chosen ...

A Satisfying Ending (Or Not)

By Randy Susan Meyers Beginning a book is easier than ending it (at least for me.) A beginning is exciting and glittery, filled with excitement and hope. First sentences are sexy. They pop into my mind all the time.  If I only had to write the first lines, I could write ...

Adapting Real People & Places For Fiction

By Juliette Fay “All fiction is autobiographical.” Well, maybe not strictly, or even partially, but let’s face it—most fiction writers are at least tempted to borrow from real life. Maybe it’s a quirky relative or a nasty neighbor. Maybe it’s a tacky-yet-charming beach town or city full of bright lights and dark ...

On Voice: Grit, Style and Credence

Photo: True Grit (Paramount Pictures, 2011) By Kathy Crowley Just the other day my 11 year old son and a few of his friends were discussing the book When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. They all had great things to say – despite the fact that When You Reach Me has a significantly ...

Showing But Not Telling: On Putting Our House Up For Sale

        By Robin Black   After eighteen years, we are moving, my husband and I, selling the home in which we raised our three children, the home in which we unimaginably slipped from being young to being members of AARP, from having four parents to having two, from ...