It seems simplistic in light of what has been transpiring since last fall (Harvey Weinstein et al, #metoo #timesup etc.), but a couple of years ago, when I was writing I Love You Today – my novel of New York in the 1960’s – a stunning article about women in advertising appeared in the New York Times. It was an interview with five women who, after years of silence, finally had the nerve to speak out; to relate how they had been harassed, discriminated against, and generally de

Every novel has a premise. They start with just a whim or an idea in the author’s head. What if this happened? My novel Keep the Ends Loose started this way. I was in my car, listening to a podcast about life-altering events. Each story started with something somebody did that turned their world upside down. One decision. One thought. One move. As I drove along, I wondered how somebody’s decision to change one little thing might affect the rest of their life. What would happe

My first Story Plant novel, The God’s Wife, came about for the oddest of reasons. The book, a historical fiction/fantasy, basically follows the induction of a 16-year-old girl into the role of God’s Wife of Amun, a real position in ancient Egypt. However, the book was first sparked by a movie I saw years before I wrote one word of The God’s Wife. I had seen a movie called The Double Life of Veronique, a French/Polish film by Krzysztof Kieslowski, at an art film venue. Double

I live on a rural street. My neighbors are measured by miles, not feet. We have plenty of “head cases” (my husband’s term) out here. Paranoia, gun ownership, and chicken-keeping run high. There have been lots of times when my children have said, “I wish we lived in a real neighborhood,” especially when they can find no one to play with beyond their siblings on a snow day. When they lament the lack of neighbors, I try to assure them they aren’t missing anything. And we have wo

In 2014, I wrote a stage play entitled, Three Shoeboxes. I wanted to create a story where the main character (Mac) held life in the palm of his hand—a beautiful wife, three loving children, a comfortable home and successful career. And then I wanted to yank Mac to his knees, creating a situation where he would need to summon every ounce of his strength, faith and courage to get back on his feet. I chose an invisible enemy, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.), a struggle

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” has always been an intriguing concept to the writer in me. Most of my books start out based on true life stories that captivate me. Twilight Time was no exception. It is one of the most dramatic ones in my nine-book Story Plant repertoire. Irony is that I didn’t, at first, think I could write about this harrowing personal experience. Revisiting it caused real physical and emotional meltdowns. I told Lou Aronica that I probably would not recor

From Nothing, my third and most personal novel, has moved from my ownership to yours. I hope it will mean something to you. It certainly has been an odyssey for me. The book is rock and roll, the process of performing it no less so. As I write these words, I am preparing a number of public book talks, thinking about what I want to say about this story beyond letting it speak for itself. That’s always hard, and particularly difficult this time because I did choose each word in