(This also posted at Bark.) I’m having a party on June 18th at 6 pm and you are invited. This isn’t just any kind of party, I will host a gathering at my house, but at the same time, all around the world, other people will have the same party—on the same theme. What’s our theme you ask? I’ll tell you, we’re CONNECTING THROUGH FOOD, one of my favorite ways of connecting. We’re also celebrating the release of Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World (a Three River Press original). Forty-one authors, of …

Maybe celebrating Christmas at home in Sweden with my three-year-old nephew and brand new nice has made me extra sensitive to violations against my childhood literary heroes. My English husband certainly thinks so after I treated him to a long tirade this morning about slimy fraudulent business men doing anything for a buck. The source of my morning anger is Svenska Dagbladet’s article about Astrid Lindgren’s relatives spending hundreds of thousands of kronor on protecting character names from her books on the American market, only to find out that the copyright firm they used turned out to be fraudulent. Saltkråkan …

I’ve known about the book for a while now, but when I received the cover it it really sunk in that I’m going to be published–in a book! I may be biased, but this is the most beautiful book cover I have ever seen. I can’t wait to hold a copy in my hand, hope there are many more that feels the same way and that it will make a ton of money for the kids in India. It’s an honor to be part of this project with Rita and to be published among such fantastic writers. As you Buy …

As if it’s not enough stress to carve out enough time in the day for writing, aspiring authors also have to research marketing opportunities and start to establish themselves in the webby-facebooky-myspacey-bloggosphere. I know what you’re thinking; shouldn’t you have a book published before you start working on your marketing plan? And yes, I should, but it isn’t just the books you’re marketing, it’s also yourself, your image, your presence, etc. Look at how many authors are on Facebook and/or have webpages and/or blogs. Why does Malcolm Gladwell publish a bunch of essay in the New Yorker right before one …

Don’t get me wrong, I love my genre. Nonfiction moves me, thrills me, and inspires me. In short, it completes me. Okay, so maybe that was a little over the top, but you get the picture. I’m a big fan of nonfiction. But, this quarter I’m hanging out in another fiction class and loving it. This form and theory class is looking at point of view and time. The reading list is awesome: To the Lighthouse, Cloud Atlas, A Mercy, As I Lay Dying, The Known World, Pedro Paramo, Runaway, and The Zero. Homegrown author and local hero Jess Walter …

When I read Rita Golden Gelman’s Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World in 2005, I immediately wanted to know more about the fascinating author. Actually, what I really wanted to do right after reading the book was to sell all my stuff, pack a backpack and start living a nomadic life like hers. I had travelled around in South East Asia and Europe for most of 2002 and was very keen on adapting that lifestyle full time. After I calmed down a bit, I logged on to Rita’s website instead of listing all my possessions …

Back in March, I queried the editor at INWH&L for a profile of a local writer. I just got an email from her saying she wants the article but didn’t have space until now. It will be in the August/September issue of the magazine. The profile is of Jamie Leigh Hansen, an amazing writer and friend who writes paranormal romances that takes place in Spokane. I wrote a nine page profile of Jamie for a class last fall quarter. For this article, I had to decide what I really wanted to say about Jamie and then use only 800 words to …

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with one of the fiction faculty members in my MFA program. Some of the second year nonfiction students have asked to switch advisers—something that sometimes occurs in all genres in our program. The instructor theorized that nonfiction students were more sensitive about their work because it describes actual events—reality—and is therefore more personal. This made me ponder if I react differently to critique of my fiction pieces than I do on my essays. What I found was the opposite of what the faculty member believed. Our program requires all students to take …