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The Postcard Gets 5-Star Review from Readers’ Favorite
Honestly, it’s been a pretty rough 2019 for so many reasons, but seeing this review this morning from READERS’ FAVORITE put a big smile on my face. It’s when I read something like this that I know that despite all the work and effort it takes to be an independent author, it is all worth it in the end. Thank you also to my former student, now PR pro, Grace Clark, for the amazing cover photo, which helped earn us a perfect 5 score for the collection, from writing, storytelling, to cover design. Cheers! THE BOOK REVIEW Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers’ Favorite A postcard is more than just…
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Bridges of Madison County Author Dies: A Tribute
* The year was 1992. I picked up a copy of best-selling author Robert James Waller’s The Bridges of Madison County and couldn’t put it down. I knew it was a love story, and I was riveted. Like many other readers, I was intrigued by Francesca and Robert Kincaid’s 4-day, intense love story set among the landscape of rural farmland in Iowa. Kincaid is a photographer, out to shoot the covered bridges in the area; Francesca is an Italian war-bride whose husband and two children go off to the state fair for the weekend. When Kincaid stops to ask Francesca for directions, a whirlwind affair begins that changes forever the…
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My Latest Author Crush
Markus Zusak is attractive, intelligent, in touch with human nature, deeply evocative with his use of language, and has had me thinking about the story he wrote for a good, solid week now. In fact, I know I will never forget it. I’d call that an author crush. I can’t get Liesel, Hans, Rosa, Ilsa, Max, and Rudy out of my mind, not to mention Frau and Michael Holtzapfel. The images he left me with are vivid and haunting, and “The Book Thief” is one of my all-time favorite stories I have read. Perhaps Zusak’s best choice in writing this WWII novel about foster-child Liesel Meminger was allowing the story…
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Book Review: The Art of Fielding
Once again, I’ve crafted a review to share with my Feature Writing students as they prepare to write a creative critical review of their own. Here are my thoughts on “The Art of Fielding” as promised. The Art of Fielding: Book Review It is rare for me to be at a loss for words, to be left with the inability to articulate why I was left feeling blasé about a piece of work that The New York Times Book Review called the Best Book of the Year for 2011. And, it is even more rare for me to be overly critical of a writer, especially one who spent ten years…
