Calling all creatives: Writers, artists, musicians, people who create and have lively imaginations–do you want to take charge of your books and your work? I do. I want to own my creative life from beginning to end. I came to it through experiences I’ll describe below.I became an indie because publishers have their own ideas of what will sell, and collaborating with them can be rocky, but emerging models of self-publishing offer a wealth of…
I’m a veteran of publishing poetry books with small presses, but now as a successful self-published novelist, I’m considering how to succeed with self-publishing a poetry book. While it’s true that far fewer readers engage with poetry than with fiction, I know the poetry readers are out there. And I know how to publish a book using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, a good cover designer, and promoting books with ads. What I don’t know is…
Art and artists are a theme in my fiction and poetry. In poetry, it’s called ekphrastic. I’m working on an ekphrastic poetry collection titled The Artist’s House, inspired by my llongtime association with visual artists, musicians, dancers, and writers. My poetry and my novels often feature artists or a response to their work. It’s because I grew up with an artist father who painted constantly and invited many artists to our home and shared studios…
Abundance in Springtime — and National Poetry Month. April is a delicious combination, offering bounties of beauty, nature, lyricism, and fun. Find a walking trail near you and dream a poem to celebrate! Poetry Month The Academy of American Poets launched this annual celebration of the art in 1996. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events…
Publishing My Poetry as a Practice Long ago, in a less digital world, I wrote things and sent them through the mailbox to a few print magazines to see if they wanted to publish them. I enclosed a self-address, stamped envelope (the old SASE — anyone remember that acronym?) and waited, often for months. Most of the time, my poems came back to me like homing pigeons in the old SASE, sometimes with an editor’s…
HEART STRUNG is out today!! Despite last year’s intensity, I wrote a novel — my 7th. I wrote this story of love, music, and enlightenment, following a young couple on their trip to India, using memories of my journeys in that wondrous land. EBOOK NOW $1.99 — THROUGH 2/18/25. Get your copy on Amazon. This one feels very special, a story of love and enlightenment, and how the two are connected. Following my characters along…
THE COVER TO MY NEW BOOK IS HERE! I was lucky to get great feedback on mockups when I was playing around with concepts and images. This couple is the best one for my story of Lara, the young spiritual seeker and her boyfriend Daniel, musician and Lara’s protector as they tour India following Lara’s Map to Enlightenment. In this road trip romance, they’re both trying to figure out their goals in life and how…
I was delighted to be asked to participate in author Deonna Kay’s interview series, Authors Helping Authors. As writers, we’re always fascinated by how other writers do our thing, aren’t we? I can’t get enough of hearing about the myriad ways authors create their stories and poetry. I often glean writerly tips from authors who write very different genres than mine, but whose process somehow speaks to me. Deonna asked interesting questions, which made me…
Nur Melange: a Ghazal Anthology is a joint project of South Asia Institute and Glass Lyre Press. The collection was edited by Glass Lyre’s publisher Ami Kaye. Here’s a short definition of the ghazal form. A ghazal is a poetic form that originated in Arabic and is often used to express romantic or spiritual love. To the Sufis, spiritual love can hide in the guise of a romantic utterance, but is really a love song…
This is a summary of a discovery I made this month about marketing my indie mainstream novel (women’s fiction) The Invisibles. The short version: visibility is the steep hill you must climb and giveaways are everything. For the long version, read on.