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A collection of 560 posts

Book Reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell

Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book was similar in quality to “A Whole New World,” but because I don’t have the same abiding affection for Sleeping Beauty, it did not get the same (perhaps unwarranted) rating inflation. It reminds me

Book Reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is one of the best Maguire books I’ve read, right up there with the first couple Oz retellings (I only read the first two but heard the later ones weren’t as good.) Similar

Book Reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue

Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins by Emma Donoghue My rating: 4 of 5 stars So I guess I knew who Emma Donoghue was before she was “cool” (i.e., pre-ROOM), since this book has been on my shelf FOREVER … but I didn’t actually read it till

Book Reviews

Abandoned Writing Book: The Author Training Manual by Nina Amir

The Author Training Manual: Develop Marketable Ideas, Craft Books That Sell, Become the Author Publishers Want, and Self-Publish Effectively by Nina Amir My rating: 2 of 5 stars Officially creating a DNF shelf and adding this one to it. After a two-year hiatus from this book, I have finally accepted

books

How Early Motherhood Has Changed My Reading Life

Ten days ago, I became a mother when my son was lifted out of my abdomen behind a curtain, his cries filling the room and my heart welling up with relief. It was a long labor — 30 hours by the time he arrived — fraught with run-of-the-mill complications — meconium in the

reading

Response to Goodreads Author Question - My Summer Reading List

Goodreads asked Lacey Louwagie: What books are on your summer reading list this year? Lacey Louwagie Well … I’m expecting my first child in July, so my summer reading list is basically a crash course in parenting and domesticity. The stack consists of “Hypnobirthing” by Marie Mongan; “How to Raise

100

Tomorrow is Nov. 1. Enough Said.

Tonight is my last night of freedom, and I’m nursing a moderate migraine (yes, I get enough migraines to classify the severest of all headaches into severity classifications …) that interferes with my ability to either a) enjoy it, or b) frantically try to get all the things done that

abuse

The Underside of Imagination in Panther

Yesterday I finished reading Panther by Brecht Evens. It’s an artsy graphic novel that can be read in about an hour — a deceptively short amount of time, considering how impossible it is to shake once you’ve read it. In my exploration of the book, I’m going to

mental illness

Responsible Handling of Mental Health in YA Literature

Last weekend my husband and I attended NerdCon: Stories in Minneapolis. The first session I went to was titled “Mental Health in Young Adult Literature,” and it was presented by Amanda MacGregor with Teen Librarian Toolbox — a GREAT resource for those working in teen services or anyone who cares about

imagination

Writing and "Tulpamancy"

At the end of August, Reply All ran a podcast episode called “Making Friends” that has been haunting me since I listened to it on a long drive a couple weeks ago. The episode follows Shea, a 30-year-old woman who says she was about to commit suicide at age 16,

Arabian Nights

Retelling Book Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a first novel, and it feels like one. The prose is overwritten and tends toward the purple, and it resorts to using the same descriptions far too often. Like, we don’t need to

artist dates

Interactive Fiction: Is it Real Literature?

Last weekend was South Dakota’s annual Festival of Books, a free event that draws together authors and readers from across the state and beyond. There are always plenty of sessions that are of use to writers, and a bunch that are like crack to readers, and I always walk

Book Reviews

Writing Book Review: Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg My rating: 4 of 5 stars Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #21: A book from the Goodreads recommendations page The philosophy behind this book is pretty much the same as that powering Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Longbourn by Jo Baker

Longbourn by Jo Baker My rating: 4 of 5 stars I think the people who dislike this book because they don’t like the way Elizabeth or other Bennets act in it really need to venture out of their protective bubble. There’s a reason the characters in Longbourn are

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Jem & the Holograms #1- Showtime

Jem and The Holograms #1 by Kelly Thompson My rating: 5 of 5 stars Book Riot Read Harder Challenge Item: A non-superhero comic that debuted in the last 3 years I am not afraid to admit that nostalgia may have inflated my rating. However, it’s not as if I’

The Writing Life

Need a Writing Boost? Shake Up Your Schedule

I haven’t blogged here in a long time, and usually that means I’ve been having trouble finding enough time for writing, period. Happily, that has not been the case these last few weeks. Instead, I have been enjoying the forward momentum that comes from getting in a little

Book Reviews

Why Do We Feel the Need to Redeem Rumpelstiltskin?

Over the weekend, I finished reading Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff. It is a middle-grade retelling told from Rumpelstiltskin’s point of view, when he is just 12 years old. This book came out when I was working on later drafts of my own Rumpelstiltskin retelling,

book promotion

Rumpled Giveaway and Easy Book Promotion

Starting in less than an hour — which will probably be “right now” by the time most people read this — a copy of my novella retelling the story of Rumpelstiltskin — Rumpled — will be offered as a giveaway on PrizeMojo, a new giveaway site that, full disclosure, is coded by my husband.

The Writing Life

Doing Away with Writer's Guilt

Last week, I spent all of 15 minutes revising the novel that I’m supposed to be moving through at a rate of one chapter a week. (It was supposed to be half an hour, but I got a work call that truncated it.) Last week was a terrible one

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: A Wild Swan and Other Stories by Michael Cunningham

A Wild Swan: And Other Tales by Michael Cunningham My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a collection of stories beautifully retold in Cunningham’s masterful prose. Stories that are haunting in their original form (i.e., “The Monkey’s Paw”) are even more haunting with Cunningham’s treatment,

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Straw Into Gold by Gary Schmidt

Straw Into Gold by Gary D. Schmidt My rating: 3 of 5 stars After years of avoiding Rumpelstiltskin retellings while I worked on my own, it’s been fun to read different interpretations of one of my top three favorite fairy tales. This book takes for its premise that the

Uncategorized

What "Cool Girl" Can Teach Us About Writing Women

For about four years in my adolescence, I refused to read books by men. This was because when I was 12, I was so turned off by the way Fred Saberhagen wrote about women in one of his Book of Swords installments that I figured I better stick to women

The Writing Life

Keep the Writing Connections Alive

Usually, I begin each day by writing in my journal for half an hour. This allows me to sort of “declutter” my mind before moving forward into the day ahead, and it also prompts me to record more of my life than I would if I was only writing when

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

Guess what I did over the weekend? I started ACTUALLY WRITING on one of my novels again. It felt so good, and I’m so happy to be working on a long-term fiction project again. Cobbling together lots of smaller projects during my writing time makes me feel a little

The Writing Life

My Writing "Retreat"

Today I did not have to go to work for my “primary” job (yay government holidays), and yet it’s still taken me almost all day to come here and write. Once upon a time I had this great idea that every time I had a “bonus” day off from