Writing a novel is sometimes like walking down a long, dark hallway with a brilliant light at the end of it. Today I feel empty. While editing this new novel, I took my longest walk to get to the end. I’m not saying the book is profound or important, only that writing it is always …Read More
What does a writer do the day after she sells her latest book to a publisher? Why, she gets back to work, of course. I just finished drafting a 10K word gothic story. (No, I didn’t do it all in a day this time!) The title is Stone Angels. At least it is for now…I actually wrote …Read More
Earlier this winter I visited the Cincinnati Art Museum–one of my favorite museums–with my son. These sculptures are the inspiration for the as-yet-unnamed Southern gothic short story I’m finishing up right now. I could have looked at these all day. …Read More
I’ve never seen a dead person who wasn’t already embalmed and funeral-ready. The idea of being right there in the presence of a fresh corpse terrifies me. (I’m not crazy about open-casket visitations, either.) In fact, just thinking about writing about real-life corpses sent me running for a bag of potato chips, and I spent the …Read More
Coming home can be a wonderful thing. One of the places that always speaks to my heart is the Cincinnati Art Museum. When I was a child, it seemed like a rather dark, forbidding place. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it looked to me like a forbidden castle of some sort. Confidentially, as a …Read More