Our Mothers, Ourselves, Our Fiction

Posted on May 30, 2018 by admin

After reading The Worried Man, a friend who’s also read my other books pointed out that my main characters’ mothers aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy. It’s true. Like a lot of women, my mom and I clashed over many things. What comes through in my fiction are larger than life echoes of those conflicts. Unfair as it is, the things I admire most about my mom — and there are a lot of them — usually find their way into other characters. Conflict Conflict Conflict Storytelling requires conflict...

Why I Admire My Mom

Posted on September 26, 2014 by admin

For the 3 1/2 years I've written this blog, the post that has consistently gotten the most hits is Why I Love V.I. As the title suggests, it's about fictional female private eye V. I. Warshawski, created by Chicago-area novelist Sara Paretsky. The post's popularity tells me I'm not the only person who likes to read about strong women. The devoted fan base of books and movies like The Hunger Games and Divergent underscores that. Which is why I decided to write more posts about women, real and fic...

From My Mother’s Bookshelves (Favorite Books Post No. 3)

Posted on May 10, 2014 by admin

My mom and dad had in their bedroom three large bookcases, which I thought of as my mom’s because nearly all the books were hardbacks she’d bought from book-of-the-month clubs she’d belonged to in the 1950s and 60s. The books had a slightly musty yet dry old paper and cloth smell I love to this day. Most of them had plain cloth bindings with titles that were barely visible on the sides, as the paper jackets had fallen apart and been discarded.My favorite book on those shelves was The Elegant Wit...