Tag: author advice

Meet the Author: David Antrobus

Author David Antrobus

Author David Antrobus says that what sets his style apart is his flagrant disregard for any sense of decorum or discipline whatsoever. He says his writing is more Capote than Cormac—more Houellebecq than Hemingway. He also went on to say it is the  literary equivalent of Casablanca-meets-Spinal Tap. Knowing David as I do, I’d have to agree with that assessment. I’m just not sure what it means.

By way of example, when I ask David where he finds his inspiration, he says,  “Life, movies, (comic) books, music, the internet, the inside of fortune cookies… and by that, I mean the actual inside of fortune cookies and not the little scrap of paper with the fortune on it. Hey, don’t look at me like that; they’re very smooth and almost always a pleasing shade of brown.” They are, aren’t they? Continue reading “Meet the Author: David Antrobus”

Writing a Memoir: Five Things to Consider by Barbara Morrison

Innocent: Confessions of a Welfare Mother
Innocent: Confessions of a Welfare Mother by Author Barbara Morrison

People—me included—love reading memoirs because they are true stories that give us insight into someone else’s experience. Memoirs differ from autobiographies in that they only cover a short period of time, not an entire life. Also, they are understood to be the author’s experience rather than an objective document. Here are five things to consider when writing a memoir:

1. What is the purpose of your memoir?

You can write a memoir as therapy, an effective way to understand and cope with a confusing or traumatic experience. As Abigail Thomas says, “Writing memoir is a way to figure out who you used to be and how you got to be who you are.”

Continue reading “Writing a Memoir: Five Things to Consider by Barbara Morrison”

Writing and Depression by Pam Bainbridge-Cowan

Author Pam Bainbridge-Cowan

I just read an article at Health.com that named writing as one of the top 10 professions in which people are most likely to suffer from depression. Of course that wasn’t a surprise. Writer friends and I have had many conversations about our tribe’s tendency toward suffering mental illness, and offing ourselves with rather disturbing frequency. Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Anne Sexton and of course Sylvia Plath are some of the best known examples.

Though the article didn’t teach me anything new – the “what” was old news – it did make me wonder about the “why.” I decided to do a little research. I found an article on the subject of depression by novelist Simon Brett. One of the things he said was, “Many writers are introverted, quiet people, and find it stressful to have their work assessed publicly. Now there are reviews on Amazon, for example, so that happens even more.” Continue reading “Writing and Depression by Pam Bainbridge-Cowan”

Custom Facebook URLs

Wow.  One of the most common…flubs, for lack of a better word…that I see is a Facebook author page with a discombobulated URL.  I must see at least one or two a day.  “Come check out my page!” they’ll say to me, presenting me with a link that looks like “http://www.facebook.com/pages/Judy-the-author/260458930631195”   Hey, Judy, guess what?  No one’s going to remember how to get to your author page with a link like that.

Don’t feel badly, authors aren’t the only ones who fall into this — lots of folks with “Business” and other kinds of pages do as well.   And guess what?  There is something you can do about it.

Continue reading “Custom Facebook URLs”