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Reclaiming My Time: I’m breaking up with Facebook for good.
Most authors I’ve talked to at Waking Writer admit that distraction is one of their biggest obstacles to actually…you know…writing. I’m willing to acknowledge that Facebook has been one of the main sources of distraction for me. I’ve been on Facebook since 2005. Yes, nearly 15 years. It’s my longest relationship with any non-human thing:…
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Nita J. Kulkarni, author of The Hawa Mahal Murders
When and why did you begin writing? I started writing when I was ten years old, with a diary. I wrote a diary for about 15 years and this wasn’t a chronology of events. I wrote about my thoughts and feelings, poems and character sketches of people I knew. I also wrote short stories, novellas,…
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Tim Starnes, author of Agony: Suffering Yesterday, Entertaining Today
What is the biggest thing that people THINK they know about nonfiction that isn’t so? The walking public believes, or at least I think so, that nonfiction has to be boring – and sadly, it usually is, but the reality is that it doesn’t have to be. There are too many people out there who…
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The Rise of Nigerian Literature, and more…
Indigenous Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors You Should Be Checking For (Black Girl Nerds) Louise Erdrich is a prolific American Ojibwe author who has published or contributed to over 30 books in various genres. Erdrich has written poetry, non-fiction, children’s literature, and contemporary fiction. Amidst her varied bibliography are several genre novels. Her most recent work…
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Crime Fiction, AI Writing Novels, Celebrity Book Clubs, and more…
Computers are learning to write, but could they ever produce a literary masterpiece? (ABC News) However, the idea that a novel could ever be written by a machine may still strike some as absurd, given the complexity involved. Language has long been regarded by some AI researchers as a “final frontier”. To readers who value…
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Witches in Fiction, Imagining Palestine through Fiction, and more…
From Baba Yaga to Hermione Granger: why we’re spellbound by ‘witcherature’ (The Guardian) Since Trump’s election, which inspired mass spell-casting by thousands of “resistance witches” (the selection of judge Brett Kavanaugh for the supreme court also led to a mass “hex-in”), there has been a slew of novels, poetry collections and anthologies with witchcraft as their theme.…
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Toni Morrison on the Necessity of Literature, and more…
In defence of ‘chick-lit’ (The Daily Star) These books (the good ones at least) offer more than just fluffy escape. In the absence of a challenging form and language, such stories offer enough comfort and optimism that the reader is able to absorb some strength from their characters. Camus’ Mersault may evoke a thought or…
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The Ghosts of Kings by Amy Flint
There’s never a dull moment for paranormal investigator Porter Biggleswade. Newlyweds Bernard and Jill don’t think wedded life is so blissful after their honeymoon. Two weeks in Egypt, and now Bernard is being haunted. The case takes Porter to the Valley of the Kings, where the past catches up with her. But can she really…
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TK Lawyer, author of The Guardian League
When and why did you begin writing? Almost five years ago, unhappy and craving something different than my boring, mundane day job and not seeing myself working at my day job for another thirty plus years and being any happier, I literally screamed in my kitchen for something more. I shouted that I wanted something…
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Graphic Novel Satirizes Chicago Gentrification, and more…
The Novel That Accidentally Predicted the College-Admissions Scandal (Vanity Fair) The Gifted School is a novel set in Donald Trump’s America but not about Trump’s America—or at least not directly. It’s a novel about privilege, economic inequality, racial disparity, but also about ambition, friendship, and family, about the twinned challenges of parenting and growing up in a pressure-cooker environment…
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By Berneta L. Haynes
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