Writer | Sociologist | Coach
One of the first books I read about unconventional sexuality as a young adult was called Exhibitionism for the Shy, by Carol Queen. It was exactly what the title would lead you to expect: an instructional guide to an exciting kind of sexual expression for exactly the kinds of readers whose basic personalities would make […]
Thomas Mann is credited with saying “a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people,” and I think there’s truth in that. I think that writers are also people who feel compelled to write, whether it’s difficult or not. We are also people who want to share our […]
Yesterday I finished writing, proofreading, and scheduling my first newsletter of the new year. I was pretty happy with it, and one of the things that excited me most about it was that I was going to share the first chapter of my memoir with readers. That first chapter has been posted online, but I […]
I began to be afraid that, given the title change and now my uncertainty about the cover, that the book was soon going to feel alien to me, like something that was once part of me and now had been severed. It was a terrible feeling.
Brooke pointed out that despite my sense that books are physical objects to be held in the hand, an incredible amount of book buying occurs on Amazon, where covers might appear as one inch boxes. The cover needed to stand out even at that size. I shrunk the image down and fell in love with it.
Maybe sometimes a book needs one title that inspires the author to spend the hours, months, years of drafting, editing, revising and generally agonizing over every image and phrase it takes to write the book, and then it needs another title that inspires the reader to pick it up, turn it over, read the back cover copy, open it, and wander inside.
Have you ever received a gift that took you totally by surprise because it was exactly what you needed even though, until you opened it, you didn’t know such a thing existed? On Thursday when I got home from work there was an unexpected box in front of my door. I hadn’t ordered anything and […]
