Today We Say Farewell

Six years ago we started this blog as a way to share our writing journeys with others. Armed with humor, anguish and a lot of hope, we’ve posted numerous essays on craft and the publishing business, interviewed countless rock-star authors, and visited with editors and agents. Developing and thriving in this community has been so rewarding and we have each grown as writers and humans, developed life-long relationships amongst ourselves and with others we’ve met along the way.

We are not alone in finding the commitment of regular blogging as both a reward and hindrance to our real writing time. We are primarily novelists here – published and as-yet. And as with many time commitments, we had to weigh the joys of writing for this blog and (hopefully) helping others as we’ve been helped along the way. 

We’re sad to say goodbye to this page, but we are not saying goodbye to each other, our critiques, our community, definitely not our annual retreats.

We are ever grateful for your reading our words, for sharing your stories and comments, for traveling with us as we celebrated the joys of personal and professional milestones, comforted us in our rejections and tragedies.

Our posts will be there for you to peruse – a list of authors we’ve interviewed is on the right panel. And if you want to see what we’re up to, please visit us on our individual websites or pages. (links below)

Kim Bullock

Pamela Hammonds

Susan Ishmael

Julie Kibler

Elizabeth Lynd

Joan Mora

Farewell, all.

A Review of Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now

By Kim

I first heard of Meg Rosoff through Writer Unboxed, where she is a contributor, and had the privilege of taking one of her classes at the UnConference in Salem this past November. I am now kicking myself that I did not have How I Live Now with me at the time, so I could have had it signed. I don’t read a lot of YA, and so perhaps I can be forgiven for having missed this gem, published back in 2004 and since made into a movie of the same name.

Synopsis of How I Live Now (from the book jacket)

Fifteen-year-old New Yorker Daisy is sent to live in the English countryside with cousins she’s never even met. When England is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy, the cousins find themselves on their own. Power fails, systems fail. As they grow more isolated, the farm becomes a kind of Eden, with no rules. Until the war arrives in their midst.

Daisy’s is a war story, a survival story, a love story—all told in the voice of a subversive and witty teenager. This book crackles with anxiety and with lust. It’s a stunning and unforgettable first novel that captures the essence of the age of terrorism: how we live now.

About Meg Rosoff:

Meg Rosoff is an American writer based in London. How I Live Now, her first novel, won the Guardian Prize, the Printz Award, and the Branford Boase Award. The novel was made into a motion picture, which released in 2013 starring Saoirse Ronan, Subsequent novels include Just in Case, What I Was, The Bride’s Farewell and Picture Me Gone.

My Review:

It is pretty much impossible to categorize this novel.

It’s part utopian and part dystopian.

It’s a war story that takes place on the fringes of the war, at least until the scene that left me as shell-shocked as poor Daisy and Piper. This was soon followed by something exponentially worse.

The love story should be disturbing or, at the very least, off-putting, yet it somehow isn't. Not in that context. Not in that world.

How I Live Now is only 194 pages yet it felt much meatier because Daisy’s voice forced a slow read with no skimming allowed. It is one of the most original stories I've read in years, and also one of the most timely and unsettling. I wouldn't hand it to my thirteen-year-old, but when she’s fifteen I may well be shoving it at her.

It made me examine how vulnerable MY world is, how easily it could crumble into chaos. How many novels can do that?

Highly recommended.

Snowmaggedon, Bipolar Weather, and Our Productivity

Photo by Deborah Downes / Take to Heart Images

By Kim

If you are anything like me, weather has a great deal of impact on your mood and productivity. While we have not had the snow our friends in the northeast have experienced, the winter of 2015 here in Dallas would best be classified as bipolar. One day it is 70 degrees and the next we have freezing rain. We had four inches of snow last night and now it is nearly all gone. We’ve gone through long stretches without seeing the sun. The constant state of flux has made it hard for me to focus. Even tasks like writing this post seem too daunting to manage.

So I’m letting other people write it.

I reached out to several of my writer friends, asking them what the weather has been like in their neck of the woods, and how it has helped or hurt the number of words that make it to the page. Some of their ideas about how to keep or reclaim focus may be of help to some of you (like me) who are still struggling. Here is what they had to say:

“I am a summer person, and am more productive when the weather is sunnier and hotter. Here on the West Coast it has been a particularly foggy and wet winter. The fog really drags me down, and productivity in all areas flags. I’ve been using my light box more this winter.”

Brin Jackson – Fantasy writer

Photo by Deborah Downes / Take to Heart Images

“New York City's very trying, cold, icy winter has made me want to run away inside my novel and find a nicer world. I wrote one scene describing such sweet spring weather, and was quite astonished to find myself still struggling over dirty mountains of old snow outside. Which shows my creative worlds are more real to me at times than the one I live in every day! I wrote cherry blossoms and really expected them to appear!”

Stephanie Cowell – author of Claude and Camille

“Maryland has had pretty gloomy weather for the last 3 months--lots of rain, ice, wintry mix; very little sunshine. I normally love winter and find grey days excellent for concentration, but lately have been finding it hard to keep working. The desire to pamper myself--perhaps comfort is a better word--gets stronger with every dismal day. If it just snowed, I'd be a lot happier! (I used to live in Massachusetts and miss the snow's clean lines, the blue light at dawn and dusk.)”

Barbara Morrison – author of Innocent: Confessions of a Welfare Mother

“I’m hesitant to blame my lack of writing progress on the weather, but February here in southern Ontario has been downright nasty. We had stints of wicked cold (-20 to -30, for those of us who speak only Celsius… to put that in perspective, that feeling when you go outside and your forehead kind of aches from the cold is around -15) followed by slight warming, but the slight warming was always accompanied by giant dumps of snow. There are mountains of shoveled snow acting like blinders alongside my driveway; backing onto the street means taking a deep breath, hoping for the best and gunning it. I don’t think we saw an above-freezing temperature all month. I mostly gave up on running outside. 

Photo by Deborah Downes - Take to Heart Images

So yes—it’s been more a month of going mad than of writing like mad. You’d think that, stranded indoors, I’d find lots of time for writing. Not so, and I’m not sure why. I was frustrated with my project, feeling like I couldn’t get anywhere. To be honest, I put it aside. Not in a mature, considered way, either. If my story were a person, I’d have shoved her into the ditch with all the self-restraint of a tantrummy three-year-old. I wiped my hands clean and walked away. 

But oddly, just as the past few days have gotten brighter and it’s starting to feel like there might possibly be an end to this winter, I’m feeling hopeful about my writing again, too. My writing group meetings have helped, even when I didn’t want to go and had to force myself out the door. It was good to see friends, especially friends who have struggled with their writing, too. The workshop I attended recently also helped—I’d almost forgotten about it, and grumbled when it popped up on my calendar, but hearing about someone else’s approach to story helped unlock my rusty brain-cogs and start things spinning again. 

I don’t know how it’s going to go, but the snowdrifts are shrinking, and I’m easing back into writing and back into the world.”

Erin Thomas – author of Forcing the Ace

“February in the Mighty Mitten was cold and snowy. The temperature never rose above freezing once, was below zero about a dozen times, and topped out in the single digits or teens more than half the days of the month. We had about a half-dozen major snow events (more than four inches) in February, but on well over half the days of the month we received dustings and/or snow flurries. Total snowfall for this area for the year is around 70 inches. Unlike the Northeast, this has been a fairly typical winter, here along the Lake Michigan shoreline. And it’s been beautiful!

As is typical for me, the winter months are more productive, writing wise. I finished a draft of a major rewrite of a manuscript in February, after struggling with it over the holidays. The manuscript was a total rewrite (in other words, I did not reuse any old material), as near as I can calculate (based on where I think I was on Feb. 1), I wrote around 55K of new words, plus assorted essays, etc. The final few days of the month were spent in a pass-through edit of the project (in which I’m still engaged).

I’ve always loved reading or writing in inclement weather. There is a coziness and a feeling of solitude, and perhaps a bit of melancholy, that all suits my fiction, and leads me to hunker down and disappear into the process. There is a lovely quietude that comes with the snow. It’s so still out there. I’m cushioned in sweaters and thick socks and slippers, with a hot coffee cup to warm my hands. Immersion is easier. I look out at the swirling snowflakes, and the green pines and gray beech trunks, and I’m off to Dania.”

 Vaughn Roycroft – epic fantasy writer

Photo by Deborah Downes - Take to Heart Images

“So. The weather here has been wonderful, if you are a fan of Frosty the Snowman, who has decided to move in permanently. My youngest has had 7 snow days and at least one delay, followed by a week of vacation. Not much writing is happening. On the other hand, he's growing so fast he's only about 6 inches shorter than me now, and in a few years snow days will mean sleeping late or hanging with his friends instead of sledding with me, so I'm still pretty grateful for the extra time.”

Liz Michalski – author of Evenfall

“I spent almost the entire month of February sick, and did little to progress my actual book. It also meant I had too much time to doubt my current book, to dither between projects, and doubt every word I've ever written. It's been a rough winter. My husband has talked about getting me one of the light boxes Brin mentioned.

Keeping a journal pulled me through the worst of the doubt, though I'm still muddling through questions about what I should be writing. I did a lot of stream of conscious writing and surprised myself with a few revelations about my process and what was in my *colander*.

Meditation also helps me get through the worst of the weather. I am a much better person (and less grumpy mom) when I take the time to just *be*. But, like writing, it's a practice. Some sessions are better than others.

We have almost two feet of snow where I live in south-central Illinois, as well as below zero temps. I live in a rural area where many people reside in the country and have been snowed in. I have an elderly great aunt I've been taking medicine to.”

Tonia Marie Harris – writer of YA speculative fiction

Photo by Deborah Downes - Take to Heart Images

“Winter is the time I do most of my writing, because in the warmer months I want to be outside. And this has definitely happened this winter, because I have been trapped indoors with the never-ending snow. *sobbing* And although, like Liz, my kids have had 8 days off from school followed by a vacation, I've still managed to get a good number of words on the page, and even better, I've been happy with most of what I've written.”

Jeannine Walls Thibodeau – freelance editor/proofreader and writer

“Growing up in an area with sunshine 350 days out of the year left me with reverse seasonal affective disorder. I need the change of seasons both for clear thinking and focus. I do work differently in warm weather vs. cold—outside by the harbor during the summer months and at my desktop during the winter. Venue doesn't seem to affect productivity.

That said, we just came off the snowiest month on record, and I've had trouble concentrating. Not because of the gloomy weather, but because of claustrophobia. I live on the ground floor and the snow is piled so high around my building, when I look outside, all that is visible are walls of white.”

VR Barkowksi – author of A Twist of Hate

"Here in the Florida panhandle, our winters are quite mild, with about a cumulative week's worth of cold in the 20's scattered throughout February. There really is no big change in seasons...the leaves drop and the grass browns, things become dormant, but that's about it. I usually have a lot of yard maintenance in the winter, because once everything comes back to life, it comes back in full-force. Since the days are short, I do my writing at night during the winter. During the summer, of course it's tough to keep on top of the growth (especially if you didn't do winter maintenance), but since the days are so hot, I only work in the yard in the early morning or late evenings and write during mid-day. So, seasons do alter my writing habits--at least the time of day that I write."

M.L. Swift – writer of “unboxed” stories that don’t fit neatly into a genre.

"I am more productive in the winter. I posted on my blog about this topic. When the weather is inclement (I live in Connecticut) I find myself indoors more and it is much easier to write. In the summer there are too many competing distractions. I love the beach and I like to be outdoors in the summer. I suppose that's no excuse because one can always bring a laptop or tablet and write outdoors."

C.G. Blake – author of Small Change

So, what's the weather been like in your neck of the woods? How has it affected your productivity? If it inspires you, why? If it does the opposite, how have you been able to reclaim your lost focus?

Weather as a character

by Joan

As I write this, ice taps the windows and wind batters the chimney cap. I’ve just come in from helping my husband raise the exterior shades on the two-story window and my fingers are still numb. A snowflake icon shows up on my weather.com app for tomorrow (or today, as you are reading). No, I’m not in the northeast; I’m in Dallas, where last week it was 75 degrees.

Maryland house, 1991 - 1999

For forty-five winters in Maryland, there was a particular dread I’d feel going into November, knowing that I wouldn’t be warm again until mid March. The jewel-toned October trees would strip naked and stand brittle and grey. The sun would slink away earlier and earlier, sometimes not showing up at all. I shivered constantly, no matter how many sweaters I crawled into. Some years were worse than others, but in my memory the winter scene looks just as it does now: temps in the teens, imminent or piled-up snow, wind that whips chill into your bones. 

Elmore Leonard said, “Never open a book with the weather.” But what if your book features haunting, beating, relentless weather. The problem with writing advice, particularly when it involves the word “never,” is that there are brilliant stories that defy the rules. Beautiful prose, tension, engaging characters; these are the elements which lure readers into a story.  

Kim just reviewed Nancy Pickard’s The Virgin of Small Plains, which takes place during a deadly Kansas blizzard. A while back, Julie reviewed Ann Weisgarber’s The Promise, set in Galveston, Texas, in the weeks leading up to the devastating 1900 hurricane. In Weisgarber's novel, a scandalized woman leaves Ohio to marry a widower in the south Texas town. She’s expecting a fine city house, but instead he leads her to a sweltering, rustic home and a skittish child. Her new husband’s housekeeper doesn’t trust her and is fiercely loyal to the memory of his late wife, even as she harbors her own feelings for him. When the hurricane arrives, her husband goes out to help neighbors and the animals, and she is left to protect his boy from the powerful storm that literally rips apart their house. It’s the weather that destroys everything, yet it also bonds them. 

In Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire,” weather is the story. Over the course of a day, a man attempts to walk over thirty miles of Canada’s Yukon trail to meet his boys by suppertime, despite an old trapper’s warnings. It’s seventy-five below freezing, snow as far as he can see, and he’s carrying nothing more than bacon-stuffed biscuits, nuzzled against his skin to keep from freezing. With only his husky for company, he is oddly confident. Both his and the dog’s beards have turned into crystal muzzles from the moisture of their warm breath. Soon the man’s cheek bones and nose are frozen, and his hands and feet are beginning to numb. The spruce under which he attempts to light a fire is so weighted with snow, its branches cause an avalanche. In wonderful foreshadowing by London, the man feeds the fire “with twigs the size of his finger” and “branches the size of his wrist.”

As I write my current story, I’m looking for places to introduce weather into an already dangerous climate: The Depression, prohibition, divorce, poverty. Wherever you are, I hope you are safe, warm and dry, reading or writing a book with all the right elements.

A Review of Nancy Pickard’s The Virgin of Small Plains

By Kim

About The Virgin of Small Plains (from the book jacket):

Small Plains, Kansas, January 23, 1987: In the midst of a deadly blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger scours his father’s pasture, looking for helpless newborn calves. Then he makes a shocking discovery: the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl, her skin as white as the snow around her. Even dead, she is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. It is a moment that will forever change his life and the lives of everyone around him. The mysterious dead girl—the “Virgin of Small Plains”—inspires local reverence: In the two decades following her death, strange miracles visit those who faithfully tend to her grave; some even believe that her spirit can cure deadly illnesses. Slowly, word of the legend spreads.

But what really happened in that snow-covered field? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the Virgin’s body was found, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds? Why do the town’s three most powerful men—Dr. Quentin Reynolds, former sheriff Nathan Shellenberger, and Judge Tom Newquist—all seem to be hiding the details of that night.

Seventeen years later, when Mitch suddenly returns to Small Plains, simmering tensions come to a head, ghosts that had long slumbered whisper anew, and the secrets that some wish would stay buried rise again from the grave of the Virgin. Abby—never having resolved her feelings for Mitch—is now determined to uncover exactly what happened so many years ago to tear their lives apart.

Three families and three friends, their worlds inexorably altered in the course of one night, must confront the ever-unfolding consequences in award-winning author Nancy Pickard’s remarkable novel of suspense. Wonderfully written and utterly absorbing, The Virgin of Small Plains is about the loss of faith, trust, and innocence…and the possibility of redemption.

About Nancy Pickard (from the book jacket)

Nancy Pickard is the creator of the acclaimed Jenny Cain mystery series. She has won the Anthony Award, two Macavity Awards, and two Agatha Awards for her novels. She is a three-time Edgar Award nominee, most recently for her first Marie Lightfoot mystery, The Whole Truth, which was a national bestseller. With Lynn Lott, Pickard co-authored Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path. She has been a national board member of the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the president of Sisters in Crime. She lives in Prairie Village, Kansas.

My Review:

I don’t remember the last time I read a mystery/suspense novel, but The Virgin of Small Plains was one I felt compelled to pick up after Donald Maass spoke about it at length during his 21^st Century Fiction workshop. (He’s not her agent.)

The praise was well deserved. The opening sequence of events, though not a surprise after the workshop, still kept me glued to the page. I read this book until two in the morning one night and picked it back up at seven. I read it while I made breakfast, while I ate lunch, in the car waiting for my daughter to get out of dance class, and every spare moment in between. Pickard is a master at letting out just enough information to keep a reader going, yet withholding the rest until the most devastating moment. I did figure out one key element long before it was revealed, but the “how” and “why” questions were equally compelling and not answered until the end.

Writers could learn a lot about pacing and point of view from dissecting this novel. It is also a prime example of a genre novel with literary elements. 

Highly recommended.

Does Your Manuscript Have a Soundtrack?

By Kim

It feels odd for me to write a post about manuscripts having soundtracks since I’m one of the few writers I know of who must compose in silence. It wasn't until quite recently that I realized music still plays an integral part in my writing process.

A little backstory: I spent most of the summer *cough* and fall *cough* stuck on the same scene. I knew what needed to happen and I knew that writing it would force me to go to revisit places in my mind I'd have done just about anything to avoid. I hate fight scenes. Bickering is fine. Name-calling and any sort of violence, no matter how mild, is highly troubling to my Introverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Prospecting (INFP) personality type. Those who share that profile are called ‘diplomats’ for a reason, but I had to let these characters battle it out unhindered.

Back in November, a Facebook friend posted a music video by The Family Crest, a group whose song “Love Don’t Go” was played at the opening dinner for the Writer Unboxed UnConference. I remembered having liked that song, so I clicked on the video for “Beneath the Brine.” Halfway through, I paused it and went over to iTunes to buy the whole album. The song is unsettling, to say the least. An orchestral tempest of raw emotion sung by a man whose voice soars to highs few humans could ever master. My mother went so far as to compare listening to it with watching the movie Moulin Rouge. (I admit that film mesmerized me from beginning to end.)

I had probably heard “Beneath the Brine” several dozen times before I realized why I kept hitting ‘repeat.’ The mood was exactly what I hoped to replicate in the-scene-that-refused-to-be-written. It had all the waves and lulls of a storm at sea, yet even the calm parts were rife with tension. With lines like ‘all of my love, and all of my life, given to you, sacrificed’ this is a song I could well imagine Madonna singing to Carl if this scene were part of an opera. Living with him was indeed like enduring “a steady squall” where she must choose between her ambition and an obsessive love that both sustains and slowly drowns her.

Once I connected the song to my scene, the words all flowed out in one exhilarating rush. (Thank you, Sean Walsh!)

This experience made me think of other songs that have influenced my manuscript over time. There are the obvious ones, such as "Amazing Grace", "Ave Maria", Tchaikovsky’s "Warum Op.6", and Alfredo Barili’s “Cradle Song”. All but the latter are ones Madonna sang in her recitals or at other key moments in the book. Barili, one of Atlanta’s most prominent composers, was Madonna's voice teacher in the summer of 1921. He surely would have played her his most famous piece.

Two songs from Cinema Paradiso (one of my favorite films of all time) are ideal to listen to before tackling a romantically nostalgic scene. The first is the lilting main theme (by Laurent Korcia) and the other is called “Se.” Josh Groban did an amazing version of that song. It can turn me into a weeping sap in less than thirty seconds even though it's in Italian.

“So She Dances,” also by Groban, perfectly illustrates Carl’s feelings for Madonna during the Roycroft section of my manuscript. Christina Perri’s “Distance” sums up Madonna's side of the relationship well, at least until it escalates to something more like “You are all I see, sweet obsession in my soul. Fill each moment with your voice, breathe your beauty into me.” – from Tara MacLean’s “For You.”

Other songs in my manuscript’s soundtrack:

“After the Fall” by Cary Brothers

“MyImmortal” by Evanescence

“Gravity” by Sara Bareilles

“I Should Go” by Levi Kreis

“Last Train Home” by Ryan Star

“Set the Fire to the Third Bar” by Snow Patrol

“Crack the Shutters” by Snow Patrol

“Shattered” by Trading Yesterday

As you can see, very few of these songs existed in the early 1900s. That doesn’t matter, because songs from Carl and Madonna’s era would hold little emotional meaning for me, the author of their story.

What about you? Which songs have influenced your manuscript? Have you ever heard certain songs play in your mind while you read someone else's stories?

About Us, six years later

by Joan

Elizabeth, Julie, Joan, Kim, Susan, Pamela

This June will mark six years since we began this blog. We kicked off on Monday June 8, 2009 and since then have shared 850 posts. Chances are if you’re reading this you’re familiar with what we do, probably a little bit about each of our styles. We've interviewed authors, agents and editors as well as posted about our highs and lows over our many years of writing. We get excited about attending author events like others might for concerts or live theater. 

Here are just a few of my favorite interviews and guest posts from over the years. 

Amy Einhorn stops by for a chat

Dani Shapiro on Devotion

Mollie Glick on what she looks for in a submission

A conversation with Alyson Richman

Karen Harrington's favorite rejection

Kathy Louise Patrick (The Pulpwood Queens)

An interview with Naomi Benaron

We’ve updated our “About Us” page, so check it out. 

A Review of Rodin’s Lover by Heather Webb

By Kim

Synopsis (from the book jacket):

As a woman, aspiring sculptor Camille Claudel has plenty of critics, especially her ultra-traditional mother. But when Auguste Rodin makes Camille his apprentice—and his muse—their passion inspires groundbreaking works. Yet Camille’s success is overshadowed by her lover’s rising star, and her obsessions cross the line into madness.

Rodin’s Lover brings to life the volatile love affair between one of the era’s greatest artists and a woman entwined in a tragic dilemma she cannot escape.

Photo by Angie Parkinson

About Heather Webb (adapted from the author's website):

As a former military brat and traveling addict, it was tricky for Heather to choose a landing pad. At last, she settled in a rural town in New England. For a decade she put her degrees in French and Cultural Geography to good use teaching and coaching high school students.

Currently, she is a novelist and works as a freelance editor. She can also be found lurking at the popular RomanceUniversity.org where she contributes to their blog with editing advice, and at the award-winning site, WriterUnboxed.com, where she poses as Twitter Mistress (@WriterUnboxed). She also kicks around a local college teaching classes called “Write to Publish” and “Crafting Your Novel”.

When she’s cross-eyed from too much screen time, she flexes her foodie skills or geeks out on history and pop culture.

Rodin’s Lover is Heather’s second novel. Be sure to check out her first, Becoming Josephine, as well.

My review:

Hmmm…an artist-muse story set in Belle Époque Paris? The tale of a talented female sculptor obsessed with and overshadowed by a male artist of greater fame? It’s safe to say that I would have snatched this book off the shelf and bought it based solely on the title and that gorgeous cover.

For those readers unfamiliar with the relationship between Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel, the cover may imply a tempestuous affair crossing the border into obsession, one that more likely than not ends badly. The beauty of Rodin’s Lover is that while the reader does get the thrill of living vicariously through all that passion and heartbreak, this is not a typical artist/muse story. Though Rodin is better remembered by history, Claudel possessed similar talent. The role of muse is not set in stone. (Pun intended.)

Heather Webb did a phenomenal job chronicling Claudel’s slow descent into madness, much of which is told from her point of view. I saw Claudel’s delusions through her own eyes, and while I knew her perceptions were not real, there was truth to be found in them.

Readers who have felt thwarted in their creative pursuits by a parent or other loved one will likely find Claudel relatable and sympathetic.

If you enjoy stories about artists and the creative process, or even simply ones that take place in this particular point in French history, Rodin’s Lover is well worth the read. Pick up your copy starting on January 27^th.  

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received an advanced copy of the book mentioned above gratis in the hope that I would mention it on this blog. Regardless, I only recommend books I've read and believe will appeal to our readers. In accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” I am making this statement.

Our Best Reads of 2014 (Part I)

Are you looking for something great to read? The contributors here at What Women Write have some recommendations for you. So many recommendations, in fact, that we are dividing them into two posts. Kim, Joan and Pamela share their top reads of 2014 today. Stop back next Friday to check out Susan, Elizabeth and Julie's picks.

Kim:

As always, I include books the year I read them, not the year they actually released. One pick for this year, for example, actually came out back in 2006 and another in 2012. For the second year in a row I have included a novel based on the ARC, but which has not yet been officially released. I should have learned my lesson when I wrote an obvious 2014 title on this list (cough, TheMoon Sisters by Therese Walsh, cough) only to have to remove it. At this time next year I’ll probably be cursing under my breath yet again when I scratch off the last title on today’s list.

I Always Loved You by Robin Oliveira – Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas, Belle Époque Paris, Oliveira’s stunning prose…sigh. The number of stickers in my copy should say it all, though you can check out my full review as well. Oliveira’s debut novel, My Name is Mary Sutter, is also phenomenal.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein – I initially picked this one up for my daughter, but since it was about a young female spy in the clutches of the Gestapo, I decided I had best read it before handing it over. Glad I did. This fantastic book is filled with strong, brave young women, but parts of it are (necessarily) hard to stomach. See my full review here.

Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion – Ten bestselling authors, several among my favorite writers, banded together to write this anthology of short stories all set at Grand Central Station on the same day shortly after the end of WWII. The resulting anthology is nothing short of amazing. (See my full review here.) A bonus: I met two of the authors, Alyson Richman and Erika Robuck, this year!

The Art of Falling by Kathryn Craft – My teenage daughter is a serious dancer, and I try to read as much as I can about the world she will face outside of the sheltered environment of her current ballet company. This is a heartbreaking story of a dancer at war with her own body, in pursuit of a perfection her genes will never allow her to attain. Not a novel I would hand over to an impressionable thirteen-year-old, but one I won’t forget any time soon. Craft did an amazing job of making secondary characters like Angela and Kandelbaum as compelling as Penelope Sparrow without having them overshadow her.

The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman – I savor every sentence Alyson Richman writes, often re-reading passages because they are just so beautiful. I didn’t think it was possible to write a more perfect book than The Lost Wife, but she just may have done it with The Garden of Letters. This story set in WWII Italy made my heart swell and break in equal measure. Read my full review here. A highlight of my year was meeting and interviewing Alyson back in October.

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry – This literary thriller kept me up well past my bedtime the last couple of nights. I’m still a bit shaken by the story of Towner Whitney, whom I couldn’t help but love despite that she declared herself to be both “a liar” and “a crazy woman” on the first page. I also loved that the town of Salem, Massachusetts, was in itself a character. Having just visited there, reading this made me feel as though I were reunited with an old friend, albeit one with a dark side.

Rodin’s Lover by Heather Webb - Hmmm…an artist-muse story set in Belle Époque Paris? The tale of a talented female sculptor obsessed with and overshadowed by a male sculptor of greater fame? It’s safe to say that I would have snatched this book off the shelf and bought it based solely on the title and the gorgeous cover. I was blessed to get an ARC of this one, which won’t officially release until January 27^th. Check back on the 23^rd for my review.

Joan:

I’m a sucker for historical fiction, especially war stories with so much at stake. Like Kim, I thought Code Name Verity was masterfully done. I also loved these:

Wake by Anna Hope: Lovely and tender WWI drama about three very different British women and the effects of war on their lives: unrequited love, grief, memory, forgiveness and misunderstanding.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: This unique WWII drama is gorgeously told from the perspective of a blind French girl and a young German, brilliantly delivered with tension and tragedy leading to their eventual meeting. 

Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole: Epistolary novel spanning two wars, featuring heartbreaking and humorous letters which begin when David, an American post-graduate, sends a fan letter to Elspeth, a married Scottish poet.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton: Not a war story, but steeped in atmosphere and history. In 17^th-century Amsterdam, Nella’s new husband, a wealthy merchant with secrets and enemies, gives her a cabinet-sized replica of her home. In furnishing it with miniatures, she is thrown into a world of mystery, obsession, love and sorrow.

I do venture to other genres now and again, and I am so glad I did:

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, a monumental saga touching many characters and genres, past and future. It’s time-bending and mind-altering, witty and wry, heartbreaking and cruel. See the author read from the book here. I first read Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, a straight historical, but also masterfully written. 

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty: Present day Australian tale about a woman who wakes up in the gym after a fall off a bike and realizes she’s not expecting her first child with the man she loves but is the mother of three, and in the middle of a nasty divorce.

Pamela:

Thanks to my friends on this blog, my sister and my book clubs, I'm never without a list and a stack of books to read. This year was no exception.


In one of my book clubs, we picked up a second Liane Moriarty book after last year reading What Alice Forgot. We read The Husband's Secret, which led me to immediately order her newest title, Big Little Lies. Moriarty is a master at voice and story and succinctly captures the nuances of women's lives and the stories they tell to themselves and others. I love finding an author, devouring her list and not being disappointed.

Also a book club selection, Defending Jacob by William Landay, was a suspenseful story about a young boy accused of killing a classmate. That his father is an assistant district attorney only blurred the line of whether Jacob could have done it or whether his father was an unreliable narrator to the story. Good stuff!

My sister sent me Kelly Corrigan's Glitter and Glue and I quickly became a fan of Corrigan's, watching her TEDTalk more than once and consuming her other titles: The Middle Place and LIFT. Corrigan's wit and honesty always keep me turning pages.

I also finally read Tell the Wolves I'm Home (even though my dog ate the cover and tore the first chapter up a bit) by Carol Rifka Brunt and loved reading it even more than he loved eating it, I believe. And this year I reread The Giver by Lois Lowry, which proves great stories, well-told, never get old!

Seeing from another's eyes

by Joan

Over the years the six of us have critiqued each other’s work in any number of combinations, depending on time commitments and type of critique sought, among other things. We’ve learned each other’s styles and strengths. As Kim said in an earlier post on our critique styles, “We are six very different people brought together by a mutual love of writing.” 

Over the past few months, Elizabeth and I have provided detailed feedback on our respective manuscripts. One night after a lengthy back and forth she emailed me this:

“I have to tell you, the irony of you telling me XXX needs fixed, and meanwhile I'm telling you XXX needs fixed is striking. Because we are saying the same thing pretty much about the other's MS--but in yours, it makes perfect sense to you, and in mine, it makes perfect sense to me. Had you noticed this too? :)”

Well, no, I hadn’t, until then. After drafts and revisions and rewrites and more revisions, it’s nearly impossible to be objective about your own work. Paragraphs flow in your head as if they were lyrics to a song and you hum and smile as you re-read for the sixtieth (at least) time, convinced no one could possibly find a clunky sentence. (Trust me, they will). It never occurred to me that my manuscript included the very things that trip me up in another’s work.

Along this same vein, we noticed how we differ in our reactions to plot points. I was completely convinced my character was in the wrong about a particular situation and wrote a scene with her apologizing profusely and trying to fix it, while Elizabeth couldn’t see anything wrong with my character's behavior and found the call for atonement odd. At the same time, I disagreed with one of her character’s actions while it seemed completely logical to her.

I perceive the world, and therefore fiction, from my own spyglass. My experiences, good and bad, have tinted the lens. Yours have done the same. Your view might not be the same as mine, but that doesn’t make it wrong. As a critique partner, I have a responsibility to recognize that my opinion is only that, my judgmental observation. That I need to widen that spyglass range to allow that other people don’t see the world or their lives as I do. 

Or, as the eloquent Elizabeth Berg wrote in The Pull of The Moon:

“I have wanted you to see out of my eyes so many times.”