fiction

This installment of Written Words has reviews of two very different types of books. First is Secrets by SL Pierce: a taut, fast-paced thriller. Pierce is a professional writer. Her skill and knowledge of putting together a good read is evident in all her books. She doesn’t waste words and knows how to make a […]

Castles, by Ben Wretlind — an independent book review

Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors by Benjamin X. Wretlind My rating: 5 of 5 stars Often, you can tell on the first page whether a writer knows what he or she is doing. There’s a flow, a grace to the way these writers construct their sentences that makes reading a joy. […]

  Exodus, Christmas and other mythic narratives I’ve been reading a lot about “narrative” in news and social media lately. Not as in literature, as in a story arc, but narrative applied to public discourse about current events. The narrative of global warming, for example, is now being derided by climate change deniers. In other […]

Image courtest Nicu’s Photoblog.Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. It’s the basis of just about every story: right versus wrong, good guys against bad guys, the appeal of the bad boy … Something I’ve been wondering about for a long time is that, outside of literature, evil-doers don’t seem to consider themselves […]

Creative Commons Guest post by Samreen Ahsan “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ― Louis L’Amour After I published my first novel, A Silent Prayer, many people around me asked what truly inspired me for writing or more precisely—what made me write?  I never knew […]

What do writers read? Bestsellers reveal all!

  Image: zoetnet via Flickr/Creative Common In my continuing quest to blow your minds, I again present three very different authors whose answers to the same questions may surprise you.   Sydney Landon is a New York Times bestseller-listed author of romances, including the Danvers series; David C. Cassidy’s books, including Velvet Rain and Fosgate’s […]

What do great writers like to read? Gary Henry and Mohana Rajakumar

Image courtesy Mary Okeke Reviews.  This week, two very different authors answer my unscientific survey of best sellers. Gary Henry is author of the urban fantasy novel American Goddesses and a collection of short stories, What Happened to Jory and Other Dark Departures. Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is author of a number of literary novels that explore […]