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An End-of-Year Letter to Readers
Dear Readers, Today, I’m going to start with one of the highlights of the year, and it has been handwriting letters to readers. I’ve handwritten over 100 letters to readers thus far. Without a doubt, this has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of being an author, for without readers, we are lost. When I published The Letters in the Books in July, I knew I wanted to do a special promotion with an independent bookstore. (If you order through Amazon or B&N, there are no letters inside). As well, since the protagonist of my book, a bookstore owner, handwrites uplifting letters that she slips inside books, I wanted…
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The Loss of George
* This week, I learned much too late of the passing of my favorite professor and one of the best people I knew, George Friedman. He passed away in late February. Every once in a while someone comes along and makes an impression on your life. That person, for me, came in the form of Dr. George Friedman, professor of English at Towson University. George, as I came to call him, was the singular inspiration for my first novel, Beneath the Mimosa Tree, which began as a short story in George’s class—Writing Creative Short Fiction—during my first master’s degree. When he returned a short story I wrote, and verbally told…
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The Move to Online Learning and Its Benefits
A few months ago, no one could have predicted the serious state we would be in as the coronavirus affects the world. I looked back at my camera roll this morning, and it’s filled with photos of local travel, time with friends and family, writing and promoting my books, and all the love I feel when I am on Stevenson’s campus. Now, as we are all quarantining ourselves to help flatten the curve, it looks as if this will be the new normal for some time. At Stevenson University, we took action quickly. We convened, came up with a plan to finish out the semester, and have put that plan…
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Meeting Mitch Albom Was A Dream Come True For This Indie Author
My Bucket List of Writers I Would Like To Meet (in no particular order) Elizabeth Gilbert (heard her talk; did not meet) Jeannette Walls (heard her talk; did meet) Mitch Albom (heard him talk; did meet) Charles Dickens (impossible; dead) Jane Austen (impossible; dead) Rosamunde Pilcher (elderly, no longer writing or traveling) Steve Martin (still working on it) Andrew McCarthy (actor now Editor-at-Large and writer for National Geographic Traveler; bumped into him in NYC, but didn’t talk to because I was too scared to). *** This is a partial list of writers I would like to meet. Some I have met; some I’m still working on, and others may be added…
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The Real People Who Have Inspired My Leading Men
As I did a few weeks ago, I thought I’d continue this series which was inspired by a fellow writer’s blog whereby he wrote a post about people who have inspired his characters along the way. I loved reading his insights and what informed his writing, so I’m going to continue doing so with people who have inspired some of my own characters in my novels. Again, I’ll pick three, one from each book. MICHAEL CONTELLI from BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE When I was little and my grandmother and grandfather (Nanny and Poppy) lived in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, on Myrtle Avenue, I would regularly visit. We didn’t move from…
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Why I Write, Part II
“The rain was beating down hard, hitting the awnings over the kitchen windows. The leaves of our old magnolia tree were drenched and wilting. I wished I could afford a place of my own. My parents had been kind enough to let me stay with them until I save enough money to buy something, but I was beginning to feel anxious. But this I knew for sure—that my house would be just as cozy as my parents, and in the backyard there would be a sprawling mimosa tree like the one in Michael Contelli’s backyard.” ~ From my short story entitled, Contelli’s Mimosa. 1992. This is how the short story…
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Finding George: One Teacher’s Profound Effect on Me
This story begins back in 1992, as I was finishing up my master’s in professional writing at Towson University. I decided to take Writing Short Fiction as my final class—an elective of sorts—in the Professional Writing program. I had selected the public relations track, so this class was taken for fun. I had taken Creative Writing in high school, and had loved it, so I decided to give it a try. Enter Dr. George Friedman, the professor. His teaching style was one that, to this day, some twenty years later, I try to emulate in my own classroom. There we were, all of us students writing stories, and George would…
