Writing What I’ve Learned from Experience by James W. Ziskin

Have any experiences from your youth worked their way into your stories? How about other life experiences? Do you consciously select these in your writing or do they suddenly appear on the page?

This week’s question is easy. The answer is YES. Of course my experiences from youth and later on seep into my writing. It’s inevitable. And not just for me. I assume all writers mine their past for story ideas, one-liners, characters, and pithy observances.

In my Ellie Stone series, I placed my heroine in...