Ten Questions for Gail Aldwin

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers, Ten Questions

In this column I’m asking subscribers to share their knowledge about writing, publishing, and marketing their books. I’m calling it “Ten Questions.” Thank you, Gail Aldwin, for sharing your insights about what it takes to get a book into print. – Marylee MacDonald Author Tip: “I follow a three-act structure to avoid narrative dead ends […]

Ten Questions for Dan Lawton

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers, Ten Questions

THAT WAS BEFORE is thriller and crime writer Dan Lawton’s sixth page-turning novel.

Billy Battles: The Remarkable Life of a Reluctant Hero

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers, For Writers Who Need Readers

This week I’ve invited Ron Yates to do a guest post about the hero of his historical-novel trilogy about the life and adventures of Billy Battles. Why am I featuring this series? Well, first, because I loved the first two books and have been eagerly awaiting this volume. And, second, because I know all authors […]

Savagely funny but serious, cynical and sanguine and whippingly plotted – Michele Magwood reviews Mick Herron’s fifth novel featuring the greedy gaseous lunk, Jackson Lamb

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers

Published in the Sunday Times London Rules ***** Mick Herron, John Murray, R295 One of the authors I’m most looking forward to meeting at the Franschhoek Literary Festival next week is Mick Herron. The British writer has been quietly turning out a series of spy novels that have built […] Click here to view full […]

Beth Pickens: The TNB Self-Interview

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers

What’s up with this book ? I had no capacity to take new clients and I turned down everyone who reached. There was no one to even refer them to. I am the only person (that I am aware of) who does this specific set of services for artists […] Click here to view full […]

Excerpt of Your Art Will Save Your Life, by Beth Pickens

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers

You’re an Artist, Keep Making Art The realization that art could first save and then expand my life came when I was a teenager in a troubled home. Life with my mentally ill mom and alcoholic dad near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before the Internet, was difficult. A smart, queer feminist […] Click here to view full […]

Poe Ballantine: The TNB Self-Interview

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers

The last time we talked we learned you were born in a log cabin and the illegitimate son of the Queen of England, what good that did anyone is hard to say, but I see you have another book coming out. Quite the coincidence. I’ll say, and thanks for […] Click here to view full […]

Excerpt of Whirlaway, by Poe Ballantine

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers

As an illustration of what I was up against at Napa State Hospital, what they used to call an asylum for the criminally insane, my fellow inmate Arn Boothby, an angry three-hundred-pound paranoid schizophrenic who regularly “cheeked” his meds, tried to kill another inmate one day in the client […] Click here to view full […]

Natalia Sylvester: The TNB Self-Interview

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers

Your book is dedicated To Ceci . Who’s that? She’s my mom. So why not say, To Mom ? My sister and I have always called my parents by their first names. It’s always been the most natural thing for us—I think I tried calling them Mom and Dad […] Click here to view full […]

Excerpt of Not My White Savior, by Julayne Lee

by Marylee MacDonald in For Readers

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