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Strong Female Characters and America’s First Woman Nominated for President

By Rachel Dacus | June 8, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

It’s official. History made. Glass ceiling — well, not if shattered, a network of cracks so numerous and widespread you know whose head is going through it soon. America may well have — at last — our first female president. So how has literature responded to the new world that presidential campaigns seem to indicate is approaching, a world of equality for women? Last year, complex and unlikeable but interesting female characters led the NYT…

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First drafts – just get the words out

By Rachel Dacus | May 29, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

I post this advice from author Neil Gaiman with some trepidation, having just spent a solid twelve months fixing words that were relatively easy to draft. But it’s true, if you let your inner critic sit in your lap while you type, you’re going to get your hands and words bitten all over until there are almost no words left and no hands willing to make them appear. So in the words of Anne Lamott,…

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Writing It Short, Fat, and Lean

By Rachel Dacus | May 28, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” – Henry David Thoreau. When I #amwriting either prose or poetry, I first write long and thin. By that I mean a lot of words to say not as much as I will wind up with, compressed. Having just finished what I hope is the final revision of a 400-page novel, I know the meaning of short…

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Publishing a Memoir — Strategies & Tricks of Memory

By Rachel Dacus | May 25, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

They’re like fallen leaves, memories. They arrange themselves in nature’s beautiful random order beyond our ability to perceive, like weather, like a life until you’re looking back on it and suddenly see an organizational purpose. And are amazed into writing about it. The thing is, who else wants to see it? Why is that mysterious, suddenly perceived arrangement important to anyone but you? That’s the question a memoir essay or book must answer. Answering it…

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A new sculpture by Baroque genius Bernini

By Rachel Dacus | May 21, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

It’s almost like time travel exists! As it does in my new WIP, THE RENAISSANCE CLUB. We now have a new masterpiece by the inventor of the Baroque, seventeenth century artist Gianlorenzo Bernini (and one of my novel’s main characters). According to the New York Times’ article, the Getty Museum just came upon one of the rarest of finds, a new work by Bernini, one that was thought long ago lost. The minute you look…

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Write another novel? At your peril

By Rachel Dacus | May 17, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

Clearly writing this novel, THE RENAISSANCE CLUB, has wiped the floor with me. I haven’t worked on my new poetry manuscript, thoughtfully blogged, wittily tweeted, or amusingly updated in … let’s just say furlongs of seasons. I’m trying to pick myself up off the floor of a rigid and focused writing routine that produced a 416-page, carefully revised manuscript over a period of years. I’m trying to remember the carefree writer who could take a…

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Superheroes and Imaginary Giraffes

By Rachel Dacus | April 30, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

Starting off with two of my recent fantasy/fairytale/science-fiction poems, I’m starting what will be a great summer run of poem publications. Gingerbread House has just published my poem “Transparency” about a superhero dead-drunk on dilithium crystals and impossible to manage. Sharad Haksar‘s “Superhero,” that accompanies the poem, is fantastic! Mockingheart Review, a new publication under the direction of Clare L. Martin, began the sequence with publishing my poems “Giraffes” about a mythical herd that inhabits…

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Novels take an awful lot of time to write

By Rachel Dacus | April 8, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

Long absence from blogging because … a novel, a play, many grant proposals, a poetry manuscript, and I have words coming out of my ears, dangling over my head as I sleep, raining into my bedroom, puffing out of my puppy’s nostrils. (Can you see that one? I do!) Really, novels take too much time to write. I love reading them and writing them. I hope I’ve learned enough to write faster the next time.…

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Rain Dancing!

By Rachel Dacus | March 4, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

RAIN! In honor of El Nino’s “moisture plume” that’s predicted to sweep into droughty California this weekend and next week, I’m posting a couple of rain dance poems. One was based on an authentic rain dance I was taught in Hawai’i. We hired this teacher and he came with his drum to work work the four of us who were sharing a house on Kaua’i. He played and we danced on the lanai, summoning the…

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Pirene’s Fountain – my poems in Vol. 8 Issue 16

By Rachel Dacus | February 11, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

I’ve had poetry in a lot of journals over many years, but I’ve rarely been so pleased to have work alongside such a great group of poets and writers. I was talking about publishers and poetry presses with a friend this morning and we agreed that even if it’s on a paper bag, it’s the quality of work that outlasts any reputation, prominence, or publicity a publisher might be able to boast of or gain.…