I was lucky enough to meet Charlotte Rogan the other night at an event hosted by Write Yourself Free, in Westport, CT. Charlotte is a local resident, and kindly spent a couple of hours talking to local writers and fans about her recently published book, The Lifeboat, described by Sam Tanenhaus of the New York…
Here’s an interesting development in the world of books and writing. Our local theatre, the Westport Country Playhouse, a venerable institution, is starting a new “literary salon series” called Books Worth Talking About! The program starts in June and consists of a pre-show discussion with an author whose writing complements the production. I’ve not heard…
At the beginning of February, I wrote a post on my personal blog called It’s never too late for fun, about a woman, who, aged 88, wanted to sit on the cannons at Compo beach again, and, with the help of friends and strangers, did it. You can see from the photos on that blog…
I was hanging out at the Westport Arts Center’s ArtCafe last Friday and got to talking with my friend Helen Klisser During about something that happened to her recently. It made me think about memories – how they’re formed, how we re-create them, and how they differ from the original event in the recreation. The…
Virginia Woolf was born on January 25th 1882 in Kensington, London. It’s the spot where I used to hang out as a teenager, full of arty cafe’s, galleries and famous museums. As part of the Bloomsbury group, she lived in Bloomsbury (of course) which is where my University was situated, so I trod in her…
The Westport Writers’ Workshop, run by Jessica Bram, is going to be running three new Brown Bag programs that take place at lunch time to accommodate working people and others with busy schedules. The only exception is the Friday “Writing Partners” which is a committed quiet time to write together. There is a charge for…
My friend Ina Chadwick proposed at our Writers’ Cafe in Westport this week that we paper the ceiling with our rejection slips. I immediately went home and threw all mine out (except the ones that actually said something nice. Both of them.) But she has a point. It’s hard to feel upbeat when you get…
And so I did it. I wrote a perfectly horrible first draft of a novel. 50, 000 words in 30 days. And you know what? I don’t even care that it’s horrible. Because a horrible first draft can become an OK second draft and then a pretty good third draft…you can see where I’m going…
