Writer Unboxed

It’s the time of the year when a trip to the mailbox means finding a cheerful bundle of Christmas cards from family and friends all over the world. And it’s this time of the year that I most miss an annual ritual: receiving a Christmas cat card from my dear pen-friend Lloyd Alexander, the great [...]

17 Comments »

We are about to enter the season of heightened expectations and goal-setting, so I’ll offer a story which I hope you’ll find helpful, then draw some lessons for the writing life. Years ago, I was overworking and missing my kids with a ferocity I found almost frightening. I’d drop them at the sitter’s and go [...]

58 Comments »

Late at night is when the pain is the worst. The aching void. The silence. The knowledge that what once was is now gone. Forever. It’s not like we didn’t know it was going to happen. This was a love affair that we knew would end. We both knew this going in, but I don’t [...]

33 Comments »

Therese here. Today’s guest is Krissy Brady, who’s here to introduce us to a book that, to me, sounds like the secret every writer needs to know–Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance by Jonathan Fields. Recently, Krissy talked up the book on the WU Facebook forum, and it made me want to [...]

35 Comments »

I’m going to take a month off in December from this site. I need to prepare a few things (maybe even a presentation) for my upcoming novel. I’ll be back in January, but still I’m nervous about leaving y’all. So in order to cope with this fear, I’ve decided to get my wife to film [...]

34 Comments »

  23 years ago, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I sold my first book. This is what I remember: it was overcast and gloomy, my favorite kind of weather, so my children were playing with Play-doh at the table and I was writing in the mini office I had set up in the dining room. [...]

37 Comments »

Therese here. Today’s guest is the delightful Rebecca Rasmussen, who’s here to talk with us about her experience with publicity and how it’s impacted her–personally and professionally–since the release of her debut novel, The Bird Sisters. Rebecca’s novel releases in paperback today, and if you haven’t yet picked it up, now’s the time. Said the [...]

28 Comments »

Therese here. Today’s guest is Annie Neugebauer, who’s here to talk about how to be a more confident writer. Annie is an award-winning poet, and a writer of short stories and novel-length works. Her writing has appeared in–or will soon in appear in–the following publications and venues: Underneath the Juniper Tree, The Spirit of Poe, [...]

24 Comments »

Therese here. Please welcome today’s guest, the one and only Sarah Callender, who’s here to talk with us about how doubt can be good for a writer. Sarah’s blog, Inside-Out Underpants, is one of my personal favorites–intimate and authentic, and highlighting Sarah’s sharp wit. Case in point, her recent blog post entitled Graffiti, in which she announced [...]

46 Comments »

Therese here. I’m excited to present today’s guest, author Carleen Brice, who’s here to talk about self-doubt and how to combat it. Her debut novel, Orange Mint and Honey, was made into a Lifetime Movie Network movie under the title Sins of the Mother, and pulled in the highest rating of any movie produced by that [...]

36 Comments »

The first time I had to speak in public was for the American Association of University Women’s annual Breakfast with the Authors at theGeorgetown,MAlibrary. I was the warm-up act for André Dubus III, who is one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. I, on the other hand, was less than stellar. I’d avoided public [...]

35 Comments »

The writing life is one never-ending roller coaster ride of rejections and acceptances, of form rejections and personal rejections, of thoughtful feedback and hurtful criticism. One day, you’re down in the dumps. The next you’re on top of the world, and nothing can come between you and your victory. Until the next dip in the [...]

19 Comments »