We all read because we have to–to bake a cake, to put together a bookcase, to pass a test. But why do so many of us become addicted to that other kind of reading–to stories? We became bookworms as children. As escape? To cure loneliness? Boredom? Because books took us on adventures in distant […]
“Where did you get the idea for that novel?” I’ve heard authors answer that question in dozens of ways, including, “I haven’t the faintest idea.” More often than not, my answer would come close to that. How, in the first novel I wrote, did the image of a peacock rising from the prairie only to […]
BOOK REVIEW: JUST TOSS THE ASHES By Marta Merajver One of the great gifts of the Internet is the ease with which we can connect with like-minded others across the globe—people whose existence we would never have discovered before. In honor of that I’d like to introduce Argentine translator and author Marta Merajver (Just Toss […]
As promised last week, poet Jane Alynn ( http://janealynn.com/) joins to our conversation on the role of the imagination. Jane, a friend and colleague, is a frequent contributor to Skagit Valley Writers League workshops on creativity and poetry. I’m delighted to have her here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Like the two mischievous characters in The Cat in the […]
“You’re imagining things!” How often have you heard someone respond this way? A husband to a wife, maybe? One friend to another? A parent to a child? In any case, it’s clearly a put-down. When I was teaching writing my college freshmen assured me the imagination is a thing of childhood—fairytales and Winnie the Pooh—given […]
In a previous blog (“About the Inheritors”), I talked about how the themes of my life emerge as I write, and more specifically, in The Inheritors, the very American experience of moving between cultures and classes. As I wrote about Carla, Alicia’s mother, I suddenly had a vision of my own mother standing at the […]
One of the fascinations of writing fiction is creating characters “out of whole cloth”, then recognizing in them attitudes and dominant traits of myself, the people who shaped me, my children, or others who have left some mark. I remember creating Carla in The Inheritors and puzzling over her familiarity. Then I woke up […]
From my damp, but otherwise cozy roost in the Northwest, I listen to the weather report from Chicago, look at the pictures of the icicle-laden remains of a burned-out buildings and remember. This memory is for you. A New Year’s Message, Chicago Style New Years’ Eve, 1945, and I was invited to spend the night […]
Why is that so often the first question we ask a stranger? To place him or her geographically, sure, but also in the whole universe of language, culture, and attitudes we associate with place. So it used to be, when people asked me that, I’d mumble apologetically. I longed to say “the mountains of […]
In an earlier blog, I urged everyone who hopes to be a writer to look back and relive their times with those magic people whose influence opened the writer in them. One of my magic people died this past summer. Fortunately, I returned to Ann Arbor this spring and visited her in the living […]
For those of you who still love to hold a “real” book in your hands, HOME FIRES is now out in paperback. If you like Stories that “shine a light on real things that matter” Kristen Nathan, Chicago Literati. 12/17/13 Stories that “even when I wasn’t reading it, the story was on my […]
The Path from Writer to Author Many writers claim they only write for themselves. I was one of those once, chiefly because the whole notion of being published was beyond the power of my imagination. However, the University of Michigan’s Hopwood Awards, won by authors such as Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, and Marge Piercy, had, […]
Judith Kirscht lives and works in the beautiful Puget Sound area. She is the author of four published works of fiction with more to come soon!
