Photo by Hisu Lee at Unsplash.com In fiction and in life A life is made of moments. It is stitched together from the things you remember most vividly — the…Continue readingThe Moment
PHOTO by Filip Mroz at Unsplash If you walk into any bookstore you will find things shelved and classified according to rigorous criteria. Cookbooks, hither, not to be confused with…Continue readingA back door into magic
Hard cover of U.S. HarperCollins edition An ebook version of “The Secrets of Jin-shei”, a historical fantasy that I wrote in a white heat in 2002, was released this year…Continue readingThe “Blessed Book”
A Slava day defines you, as a Serb Where I come from, under the wing of the Orthodox Christian church, there is a custom which hinges on a saint’s…Continue readingSlava: a spiritual family reunion
Ben White (@benwhitephotography) at Unsplash Unbidden, unrehearsed, we supplied the next lines Many years ago, on Opening Day of the then-new glass-and-steel Library in downtown Seattle, my husband and I…Continue readingThe power of words
A few years back, a blog called ‘Universal Historicals’ interviewed me and asked some of the most interesting questions I’ve ever been asked. Some excerpts: What’s the one thing that…Continue readingInside a writer’s mind
Photo by Matthew Payne at Unsplash First drafts are supposed to be awful. That’s what they are for. You simply give yourself the permission necessary to write badly if you…Continue readingThe art of rewriting
Photo by Mike Wilson on Unsplash The difference I just spent an evening – together with several other women – trying desperately to explain to a man why #metoo matters…Continue readingIt’s a matter of consent
When I was a little girl, my home town library h?d only two sections – children’s, which I blew through in a spectacular fashion, and adult. We had no such…Continue reading‘Young Adult’, what’s that?
One of the contributors to my anthology, Children of A Different Sky, tells how she came to write her moving short story. They came by the thousands By Jacey Bedford…Continue readingThe Belgian Refugees of WW1