Books and Cupcakes Book Photo Challenge - March 31.Books and Cupcakes Book Photo Challenge - April 1.Books and Cupcakes Book Photo Challenge List for A.What book(s) are on your nightstand right now? Alice Munro’s DEAR LIFE is taunting me from the stack piled up next to my lamp. Reading it each night was a wondrous discovery.ĥ. A more recent book that dazzled me is BEAUTIFUL RUINS. Is there a book you loved so much, you wish you could re-read itĪgain for the first time? I love Penelope Lively’s HEAT WAVE and re-read it to jump-start me whenever I get stuck in my own writing. She also inspires me because she started out writing children’s novels, just as I did, and went on to win the Booker Prize for her adult work. I’m fascinated by how much we humans say to each other is actually unspoken, and Lively is the I admire her sharp observational powers of human nature, her economy of words, and the deft way that she conveys emotional information between the lines of her stories. Is there a particular author who inspires you? I am inspired most by the British writer, Penelope Lively. The discoveries they reveal to me are worth the years I have to put inģ. I do very little planning ahead of time-I just have an inkling of the climax-and let the characters show me the way. For me as a writer, it’s my biggest thrill to let my characters take me on a wild joyride as I write. Manage to keep them under control at all times? Ha! Control them? I live for my characters to run amuck. Them just run loose for awhile to see where they'll take you or do you Have you experienced this? If so, do you let Writers often say they're surprised by some things theirĬharacters might do.

Edgar Allan Poe, victim of the worst smear job in literary history, was just my sort of guy.Ģ. People who have been maligned by history are my favorites-all my books are about people who have had horrible PR, so to speak. You get your ideas?' How would you answer this? Usually I get hooked by something I've read or seen in a museum. A question many writers hear during book signings is 'where do An avid traveler and historian, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia. ġ. Poe is an 2013 NPR Best Read, one of the Atlanta Journal's Best Books of 2013, Editor's Pick in Historical Novels Review, and one of Oprah's Books That Make Time Stand Still. She is also the author of numerous award-winning children’s books, including I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter. Lynn Cullen is the author of The Creation of Eve, named one of the best fiction books of the year by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Reign of Madness, nominated for the Townsend Prize for fiction.

Dot Dead by Keith Raffel