My Writerly Life

Tag: Novels

  • WRITING WITH A LILT

    Over the years I’ve noticed that I am drawn to literary writing with a lilt—a cadence as though the author was a poet or came from a culture like Ireland or Scotland, with their shared Gaelic history. Anne Michaels, a Canadian poet, writes in a loosely structured novelistic style and infuses her poetic self throughout.…

  • THE REAL CROMWELL?

    History is written by the victors. . . and then rewritten over the following decades, as it suits those in power. Or makes good reading or an exciting film. This is never more obvious than the changing descriptions of Thomas Cromwell, who rose from relative obscurity to great wealth as the chief adviser to King…

  • GROWING OLD

    Very few literary novels deal with the delicate subject of growing old. After all, even the most scholarly author, the most erudite, needs to attract readers, and this is hardly a jolly topic—old age, with its proximity to death. And yet, if literary works are an exploration of the human condition, aging must be among…

  • NOVELS AS MOVIES

    In 2025, a spate of movies were released based on literary novels, modern and classical. There was Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (a re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s gothic work); Francois Ozon’s The Stranger (Albert Camus’ 1942 novella); Kei Ishikawa’s A Pale View of Hills (Kazuo Ishiguro);Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell) and Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams (Denis…

  • OUT OF FAVOR

    Back in 2005, I discovered Irish author John Banville and his Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sea. His protagonist Max Morden is recently widowed and dealing with earlier losses in his life. Personally, I found Morden to be insufferably self-absorbed—which is a cruel thought, really—the man is in mourning! And yet that is the drum-beat of…

  • MUSCULAR FICTION

    We writers are a chummy group. We often attend the same university classes, study under the same mentors, cheer each other on, and cry in our beer together. It doesn’t much matter whether we write poetry or prose–the challenges and defeats are the same. And the job does not get any easier as publishers go…

  • THE HERO’S JOURNEY

    Whether or not we give it much thought, there is a literary device known as “The Hero’s Journey” that repeats often in literature, from classical tales like Homer’s The Odyssey and Dante’s The Divine Comedy, to modern novels, and even action films. There is a formula to the device: (1) a departure from the ordinary…

  • GREAT MODERN AUTHORS

    It is easy enough to identify the great writers of earlier centuries because time has proven their mettle. Even the most casual reader knows about the greats, from the Bronte sisters to Proust. The more difficult task is to identify their modern successors. That was the premise behind my launch of a book club–A Novel…

  • MY FAVORITE READS

    My reading preferences have always bent toward literary novels, and over the years I have devoured some of the great works, like William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. In the last 10-15 years, I shifted my focus to modern works that had a chance of earning a coveted place in…

  • CITY MOUSE & COUNTRY MOUSE

    Years back, I was living just down the road from my cousin—the inspiration for the lead character in my novel, WRANGLE. The blogsite, Women Writing the West, was kind enough to print this post about Sharon’s ranching life, and I’m sure they would not object to a reprint: My cousin Sharon McAmis was the inspiration…