“It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose everything.”

July 18, 2024

A Review of “Small Thing Like These” in 100 Words by Catherine Stover

This quote expresses the tension in Small Things Like These, which is about the terrible choice the Irish coal merchant, Furlong, must make between self-preservation and self-respect.  Either way, he stands a chance … Read More

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

June 30, 2024

A review of “Requiem for a Nun” in 100 words by Catherine Stover

This is one of my favorite lines in American literature. It’s blunt and clear, even though it’s from a book that is neither blunt nor clear. Reading Requiem for a Nun requires participating in … Read More

“I didn’t feel the same unwavering love for anyone else.”

June 15, 2024

A review of “Cat and Bird” in 100 words by Catherine Stover

When Kyoko Mori writes about her love for her cats and birds, she doesn’t hold back. Her devotion is unquestionably…well…obsessive. It’s tempting to see her in that light only. However, in an interview, Mori … Read More

Why read Alice Munro?

May 31, 2024

In the weeks since Alice Munro’s death, I’ve been thinking about this paradox: While she won the Nobel Prize and the highest respect of reviewers, she never won the hearts of the mass market audience. Why? Hmmm . . . should we start by thinking about the … Read More

“Writing the memoir is in some ways like keeping one’s balance atop a narrow fence.”

May 14, 2024

A Review of “Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir” in 100 Words by Catherine Stover

Memoirists have to strike a difficult balance while attempting to meet two goals. Their first goal is to tell us about something that happened in their past by taking us back to … Read More

“Every story has a moral, Doherty used to say, but most have more than two.”

May 3, 2024

Here is what I love about the pieces in this book: they are designed to surprise the reader. The stories build to not just one revelation, but often several. And they are sneaky. The last sentence of the last story made me gasp out loud. Because it … Read More

“When I was 4 months pregnant and suffering from morning sickness, I was . . . thrown into a filthy, windowless, smelly horse stall.”

April 24, 2024

Satsuki Ina’s memoir includes excerpts from her parents’ letters from the years they were imprisoned during WW II in a so-called “relocation center” for American citizens who had Japanese ancestors. Her parents never talked about it. While Ina knew that she was born in a prison, she … Read More

“Think mystery, not mastery.”

April 16, 2024

Have you ever gotten stuck when working on a creative project? What do you do when your work grinds to a halt? Here’s an idea: spend 10 or 15 minutes every morning doing a type of meditation where you write down whatever is going through your mind. … Read More

“I’ve sometimes wondered whether novelists like to be remembered for what they’ve said or because they’ve said it in their own particular way – in their own distinctive voice.”

April 3, 2024

In 1978, the BBC invited Barbara Pym to be a guest on its program where well-known writers discussed their work. Her views on the “distinctive voice” of a writer was of particular interest: in the 1960s, her publisher declined her seventh novel because he said her style … Read More

“You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.”

March 28, 2024

After winning the UK’s most prestigious writing award, this Irish novelist was asked which books had influenced her most. She said she loved Writing Down the Bones because it told her to “just have a go and see what comes out.” This 30-year-old book still sells 30.000 … Read More

“I don’t think you’re dying, ” I said. “I think you’ve just got a touch of cancer.”

March 21, 2024

What’s the hardest book to write successfully? For me, it would be a novel about teenagers who have cancer, fall in love, and then die. The challenges include: creating a page-turner (even though the readers know how it will end), having the characters be interesting but not … Read More

“Show me yourself.”

March 13, 2024

Anna Quindlen says that when Barry Jenkins was filming The Underground Railroad, he directed the actors to “Show me yourselves.” In other words, don’t act. Similarly, Quindlen recommends doing the kind of writing where you don’t posture for an audience. Just write the truth. Privately. For … Read More

“When people write reviews, they are really writing a kind of memoir – here’s what my experience was eating at this restaurant or getting my hair cut at this barbershop.”

February 29, 2024

Is this book a memoir? The title – The Anthropocene Reviewed and the subtitle Essays on a Human-Centered Planet — offer no clues. However, in the introduction, the author says that he wants to tell us stories about his life so that we can see how he … Read More

“In 1848 William and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple in Georgia, embarked on a five-thousand-mile journey of mutual self-emancipation across the world.”

February 21, 2024

How does a writer create suspense when the outcome of the real-life story is already known? This book excels at keeping readers at the edge of their seats. How? Woo did a “staggering amount” of research to learn the sensory details of the way things felt, smelled, … Read More

“There are those who believe they know – and those who hope they may yet know.”

February 12, 2024

Seven pages into the preface of his huge collection of poems, Carl Sandburg  tells us that he will not pontificate on the art of poetry, which is what famous writers often do in that section. Instead, he says “A poet explains for us what for him is … Read More