While we are all on lock-down, I’m writing a book and don’t know how it ends. Jessica starts her new job, a dream job writing for her hometown newspaper, the day the governor enacts stay-at-home orders. So she’ll meet her colleagues on Zoom and conduct her interviews via phone and email. Dan doesn’t even want…
Two weeks ago, I didn’t really want to do anything but worry if I was going to catch the coronavirus. Or if someone in my house or family would. Or if my son and his fiancee were going to figure out how to have a wedding during a pandemic. Lots of people have talked about…
I have heard it said (more than a few times) we’re going to have a baby boom when this is all over. With stay-at-home orders spreading from one coast to the other, I don’t doubt it. And what a wonderful thing. Love in the present and hope in the future! This pandemic is awful. Though…
Do you Nanowrimo? With a pandemic keeping many—most?—of us indoors, it seems a perfect time to plan for Camp Nanowrimo. A more casual approach to the rigors of National Novel Writing Month in November, the April camp brings us together to polish, rewrite, finish, or try something new without the stringent goal of 50,000 words…
I started my day with a rejection letter. It came from a New York agent who had asked me to write and resubmit a few months ago. She said she needed 20,000 more words or she couldn’t sell my book. Encouraged, I tore the thing apart, did a little new research and went deeper in…
BECAUSE OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, THE MARYLAND ROMANCE WRITERS HAVE POSTPONED THIS WORKSHOP. DETAILS WILL BE ANNOUNCED WHEN IT IT RESCHEDULED. SORRY FOR SUCH DISAPPOINTING NEWS I knew our writing community was lucky to arrange with author Grace Burrowes, a best-selling writer of historical fiction and romance, to speak during a day long Master Class–but now…
In an effort to spice up my reading for 2020, I decided to “read globally, read locally.” I want to read the work of authors from other countries but add a few books from local (and I mean Maryland writers) authors to the mix. My January choices have made me smile with delight, laugh out…
I will always remember 2019 as the year of Angie Thomas and her young adult novels. I started the year reading THE HATE U GIVE and scooped up ON THE COME UP late in the summer. I cherished the strong teen-aged voices of Star and Bri. My heart broke for Star when her friend was gunned…
E. Elizabeth Watson has shared on her blog a long wonderful list of holiday reads, everything from my little book, Love Letters & Gingerbread, to her Scottish romance Christmas Wore Plaid to a collection of Hanukkah stories. Lots are historical fiction, including those rugged Scots and the always popular Regency. But there are contemporary romances,…
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to read Edgar Allan Poe’s “MS. Found in a Bottle,” a short story he wrote while living in the West Baltimore house. It’s said this story of a storm-tossed ship launched Mr. Poe’s career as a weaver of strange and eerie tales. Much more frightening was opening my own work…
Mary K. Tilghman, writer 