What’s so great about Italy, and why did I spend many years of my life writing about it, culiminating in my novel The Renaissance Club, which features Italian sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini? Good questions. What I keep coming up with is that Italy is Bernini, and Bernini, Italy. I mean the place is full of gorgeous, sumptuous, emotionally moving art. It’s a place so full of art you start to take it for granted that you’ll…
CATEGORIES! I know it’s all about discoverability. I know that Amazon ranking depends on choosing the right category and tags for your book. I know, I know … and I hate fitting into boxes. I finally figured out where my book fits on Amazon, and I can’t say I’m happy. But I’m going to be in: Kindle eBooks : Romance: Fantasy: “love stories historical fantasy” When I was going after agents, I was all, like…
If you’re considering “going indie” (self-publishing), consider the category of your fiction. Publishing categories matter in the success of self-published books. Author and editor Jane Friedman has a helpful article on deciding if you should self-publish: Jane on how to make the decision. But one thing most people don’t discuss is how to self-publish mainstream fiction (including women’s fiction). Most successful self-published authors write genre fiction.
In honor of Mother’s Day, which often coincides with or cozies up to my birthday, here are two poems I wrote for my mother. She wasn’t the problematic parent, so she got fewer poems than my father, the riddle of whom I keep trying to figure out in verse. But poems for her and for the mothers intrigue me this year, in which I lost a stepmother. So maybe more to come. Apple Pie Order…
“We are all breathing a sigh of relief,” Representative Chris Collins, Republican of New York, said. “We’re living up to a campaign promise we made, the Senate made, the president made.” This statement was made after the House today passed legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The Urban Institute (funded by the venerable Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) in 2016 estimated the costs to individual Americans should a repeal of ACA pass — and…
I’m working on a new novel. I know the basic setup: it’s about two half-sisters who clash over inheriting a cottage in Italy, along with its resident ghost, the poet Perch Bysshe Shelley. The setup (hook) has specificity, but a story that can fill a novel drills down into such granular particularity you find yourself imagining exactly how each character walks, eats, where they carry their stuff, which kind of pillow they prefer, and whether…
E-reading devices have made me a fiction-reading junkie. Hooked on Books was the name of a used book store up the road, which is sadly now closed because they sold paper books. But the books I buy on non-paper are proliferating like rabbits in springtime on my e-reading devices. I am so very hooked because of the ease of reading. On my phone, I always have a book with me. I’m about to launch a…
New novel, new author website. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I’ve looked at so many author sites and the ones that stick with me are SO SIMPLE! Simple is hard. And I’m short of funds to pay a really great designer. As the daughter of a painter, however, I have my esthetic tastes, and as the daughter of a rocket engineer (same guy), I have my HTML skills. So — drum roll, please — here’s the…
This lucky writer of plays, poems, and novels got to see the spectacularly innovative musical theater that is Hamilton. Having listened to the recording at least ten times, watched every Youtube clip of the musical numbers at least five times each, I could have rapped or sung along with many of the numbers. Yet in many ways, I was unprepared for the play itself, its drama and intensity, its organization of themes and events. So…
The Renaissance Club by Rachel Dacus, Fiery Seas Publishing (forthcoming). That felt good to type! Today I’m handing over my final manuscript to the publisher. It feels like handing over the controls of my airplane in mid-flight. Next, they wrap the book with a cover. Very important element. I can’t help but imagine casting Gianlorenzo Bernini, around whom the story unfolds, for the movie. Here he is in his self-portrait, age 26, an image that…