It’s been a long time coming. After eight years of researching, writing, and rewriting, and another four years seeking a publisher, my debut novel Line of Flight is publishing with Köehler Books on November 17. I still can’t quite believe it. Maybe when my advanced copies arrive in the next few weeks, it will finally […]
Resonance
For me, writing is musical. It’s also a quest for precision. How do I channel these images and feelings in my mind and heart into words on the page? Metaphor is, of course, one way to get there, through the back door of memory. Emotional associations with a sound, a smell, a sight or taste […]
In Their Words
For anything I’ve ever written, be it fiction or non-fiction, my favorite research is always sifting through primary sources. There is something about reading materials that are unfiltered by someone else’s editorial judgment, in their original form, that gives me chills, as if I’m connecting across time and space to another person’s soul. My research […]
In the Trenches
You can travel the world on the internet, but you can only go so far. About nine months into writing the first draft of my WWI novel, including a 20,000-word false start, I realized that I needed to see and feel the landscapes that existed only in my imagination. Books and online research were my […]