by Karen Harrington As of 9:45 pm this past Sunday, I completed the 2007 NaNoWriMo challenge. Coming in at just under 51,000 words, I have a first draft of No Teddy Bears. A first draft I am proud of because I crossed the finish line, I have a story with a beginning, middle and end. [...]
The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex
by Suzanne Schlosberg Warner Books, New York, 2004 reviewed by Nicolette Westfall Although I am not well-known, I share several commonalities with Suzanne Schlosberg and Condoleezza Rice; we’re independent women, over 30, and we’ve all dealt with the publicly crippling label “single.” In Puritanical times, widowed, single, or powerful women, especially as old and obsolete [...]
National Novel Writing Month: One Author’s Journal, Day 18
by Karen Harrington November 18, 2007 Much as I had anticipated, the fire is burning out in the writing of my NaNoWriMo Dickensian-foster children in peril novel No Teddy Bears. I hit this slump in the middle of last week. A big Oh Well. I’m feeling a tad Eeyorish about, well, how I feel. I [...]
Life, Passionately: Reflections on a Japanese Love Nun
by Suzanne Kamata A few weeks ago, I gave my Japanese university students the assignment of writing about someone they would like to meet. As an example, I told them that my dream was to meet the writer/Buddhist nun Jakucho Setouchi who was born in Tokushima, where I now live, as Harumi Setouchi in 1922. [...]
National Novel Writing Month: One Author’s Journal, Day 12
by Karen Harrington Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow If you are someone who attempts to write a novel in thirty days, this sentiment applies to you. Yours truly is feeling very schizophrenic today. Why? Because I have multiple good and evil characters competing for space in my brain’s hard drive [...]
Pushcart Prize Nominations
Her Circle Ezine is proud to announce its first ever nominations to the Pushcart Prize. Please join us in congratulating our authors on thier achievement. Bird Women, a short story by Patty Somlo Deliverance, poetry by Barbara Reese Eucalyptus Moonlight, poetry by Julie Ann Shapiro The Stain, a short story by Beate Sigriddaughter
National Novel Writing Month: One Author’s Journal, Day 7
by Karen Harrington NaNoWriMo Update – Harry Potter meets Running With Scissors My progress is going in fits and starts as I approach a major turning point of my story, No Teddy Bears. I’m 12,000 words in and the story set-up is almost complete. The next big turning point is getting the family into their [...]
Peg Boyers, Author of Honey with Tobacco
by Shannon K. Winston Peg Boyers’s recent book, Honey with Tobacco, is a refreshing collection of poetry that grapples with what it means to live between multiple cultures, geographical borders, and languages. Unlike her debut publication, Hard Bread, which was narrated through Boyer’s interpretation of the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg’s voice, Honey with Tobacco is [...]
Aquiline by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, A Review
review by Suzanne Kamata In reading the poetry of Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, I am reminded of the sometimes bizarre syntax in writing produced by non-native speakers of English. For many years, Joritz-Nakagawa has taught in Japan where English words often appear in advertising and other forms of writing. This writing is frequently nonsensical, and yet strange [...]
National Novel Writing Month: One Author’s Journal, Day 1
by Karen Harrington Nov 1, 2007 First day of NaNoWriMo. I started writing at 9:30 a.m. after dropping my girls off at school. Thankfully, they go to school two days a week and this is prized writing/laundry folding time. I put on a music selection of Enya. I wrote until 10:30 a.m. I checked the [...]
