When Do I Stop Reading?

Read Along With Emilie Richards has turned out to be even more fun than I expected. When I decided it would be fun to create a new Facebook Group for readers who want to share and discuss what they’re reading, I expected we’d start small and grow slowly. To my surprise we’re now well over two-hundred…

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Three Plots Readers Can’t Get Enough of and Why

I love the title of my blog today, don’t you? Doesn’t it sound like I know what I’m talking about? That’s always a plus, but not necessarily the truth. Quite honestly my social science background is shaking me by the shoulder and asking how I know what readers love.  Have I done studies or even read other…

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Read Along With Emilie Richards

I’m delighted with myself. Or more accurately with an idea “myself” had this week. The Read Along With Emilie Richards Facebook Group is now a fait accompli. Those of you who read here regularly know about the reading challenges I’m participating in this year. In short, I’m doing the Better World Books 2017 Reading Challenge, as well…

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Northanger Abbey: Jane Austen’s Defense of Novels

The Better World 2017 Reading Challenge is even more fun than I expected. On January 18th I blogged about the challenge here, and then I promptly got down to business.  First I chose and finished Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. Scroll down to the bottom of last Wednesday’s post to hear my thoughts…

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Reading Challenge: Are You Up For One?

Some words are just loaded with meaning, aren’t they? I’m thinking of the word “challenge.” “Challenge,” only second to “resolution,” appears frequently in print and in conversations in January. We’re challenged to exercise more, eat less, drop all our bad habits like a fledgling backpacker, tossing canned goods and bottles of water behind him, ten…

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Is It Time to Write Your Own Book?

Our wonderful neighbors across the street gave a “new book” party several weeks ago. And, no, while everyone in our neighborhood has been unfailingly supportive of my writing career, this one wasn’t for me. The author was Keekee Minor, who just published her memoir, A Minor Odyssey. Keekee told us two years ago that she had…

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Strike Up the Band for Reading

Distractions are part of the deal for writers. A child cries. A stomach rumbles. A favorite TV show is on in another part of the house. And if you’re a writer at Chautauqua Institution in Western New York, one of those distractions each year is a vivid reminder that books matter. A lot. Today a…

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A Novelist at Sea with a Pile of Good Books

Sometimes it’s nice to get away, isn’t it? I just returned from a cruise, and while Internet was available (at an extravagant fee) I chose not to use it. Part of it was a natural aversion to rates of $.75 a minute. Another was the hassle of getting connected and the fear I would somehow forget…

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Ah, Romance!

Right now many of my writer friends are getting ready to attend the Romance Writers of America conference in Atlanta.  In case you haven’t heard, romance novels are still selling well, generating nearly 1.5 billion dollars in 2012.  My old friends will greet other old friends and make new ones.  They’ll meet the professionals in…

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