Who started the Writing Blog Tour you ask.

I don’t know.

Who passed the baton to me?

Esther, Esther Cohen, author of BOOK DOCTOR and NO CHARGE FOR LOOKING

Who?

My friend, Esther Cohen, the vivacious, wickedly daring writer who grabs you by the hand and pulls you into some kind of trouble. Check out what she says about writing: http://esthercohen.com/writing/

Oh.

Yes, that Esther Cohen. I met her at A Room Of Her Own Foundation’s Retreat 2011 at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I’ve admired her and her writing ever since. I invited her to be one of the first participating writers at The Hobart Book Village Festival of Women Writers in 2013. Her reading/performance piece was wonderful. She’s the kind of person and writer that your friends are always glad you introduced them to. She’s been a stalwart for me and my fellow organizers of The Festival and she’ll be back with us this year as a participating writer.

What Am I Working On?

I am working on a novel that, in some ways, will build from the one I’ve just completed, ANGELS MAKE THEIR HOPE HERE. The exciting part for me is that I’m experimenting with the narrative voice for this novel. I’ll be looking for a nimble contemporary voice that can speak from the soul of this novel. I’m in an outlining stage. Part of the fun is creating the fictional genealogy. Pictured above are a couple of my muses.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I suppose I am in the genre of historical fiction. I won’t pretend to be writing anything other than the kind/type/genre of book that I myself like most to read. I most like to be carried along in the lives of characters — borne along on a carpet of stunning literary turns as in the work of the giants. I don’t say I do this. I say I ASPIRE to do this. I aspire to illuminate the lives of people from “The American Previous” who have been unrecognized especially those of African descent. There is a bit of chippy-ness in it - a bit of wanting to make HIS story MY story and enshrining bits and pinches of the oral legacy of my specific ancestors onto the permanent written record.

Why do I write what I do?

I think, upon reflection, that I write my feelings. Often these are wounded feelings. As my father used to say when I was small and easily tearful, I wear my feelings on my sleeve. I am motivated to elicit emotions when I write. I can name what feelings either drove me or led me into the novels I’ve written. I wanted to capture feelings like those of my mother’s, a young girl growing up in a segregated city wanting opportunities that were denied to her. I wrote RIVER, CROSS MY HEART. I wanted sudden shock, separation, lack of autonomy and the pain of a besieged, oppressed humanity to be felt and I wanted to explore 19th century Washington, DC. I wrote STAND THE STORM. I wanted free rein to imagine a town, a place that I wished was real and possible and viable. I wrote ANGELS MAKE THEIR HOPE HERE to try on that feeling.

How does my writing process work?

Slowly. I understand myself to be a plodding sort of writer. I am not one to throw everything down on a page in a flash of brilliance. I’m not being falsely modest. I know how I accomplish what I consider my writing. I know how it feels when its done. I have learned over the years to schedule assignments according to my pokey little puppy world view though I have to balance my slow pace with the anxiety of getting everything written within my reasonably conceivable lifetime. I have a very regular, sort of rigid stretch of early morning writing time. When I’ve been at my desk - actually a set of three tablemates because my two so-called desks are less useful and piled with books and papers and office supplies — and I’ve advanced my projects and plumbed my thoughts, I feel accomplished and satisfied.

I venture out to look at material goods in historic houses and museums and libraries. I find that I enjoy constructing characters with insights I glean from work tools and implements, furniture and clothing.

When I had an office job, I felt like this, too because I was lucky enough to work at TIME magazine and later for the corporate administrative side of TIME INC. One of the magazine’s wunderkind writers when I was there was Sophfronia Scott.

So … drum roll … I’m PASSING THE BATON to my new/old buddy, Sophfronia Scott, who was one of the participating writers at the first Hobart Book Village Festival of Women Writers. She’s the author of the novel, ALL I NEED TO GET BY and she’s graduating with an MFA in writing, fiction and creative nonfiction, from Vermont College of Fine Arts in July. Yeah! She’s deep in revisions on her second novel, which is currently titled THE LIGHT LIVES HERE Yeah! Yeah! She’s also working on a collection of essays and is ghostwriting a memoir, Eyes in My Fingertips, for a Harvard classmate who has been blind since birth.

For goodness sake continue this Writing Blog Tour by checking out Sophfronia’s answers to the four questions beginning on May 14, 2014 at www.Sophfronia.com

And continuing my good fortune in discovering friends and colleagues through the slightest little slivers of chance, I became acquainted with Dara Lurie and her writing because someone in someone’s reading group said that reading Dara Lurie’s book, GREAT SPACE OF DESIRE: WRITING FOR PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION, was a transformative experience for them and that she had a Hudson Valley connection and maybe she’d be willing to come to the first Hobart Book Village Festival Of Women Writers and offer her workshop. I contacted her and we met for a lunch in the city and we bonded. Serendipity! Dara has created and conducts workshops that lead other writers to a practice of writing and exploration of their deepest, fullest creative notes. I’m so delighted to have Dara Lurie in my circles and thrilled that she’s agreed to link up on this Writing Blog Tour. She, too, will answer the four Writing Blog Tour questions and will post on May 14, 2014 at http://www.transformative-writing.com She also knows a lot about self-publishing and she shares her insights so then you’ll know what she knows so well.