1. Lucky, The Backstory: A Grassy Field and a Basketball Goal
I wrote my Doris Betts Literary Award winning story Lucky some eighteen years ago. I had just stepped down then…
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2. LUCKY, The Backstory: Reality
Our group wasn’t the first such program in this area of Charlotte. Before I came out there, the church already…
3. LUCKY, The Backstory: Settling In
It wasn’t long before more volunteers arrived and the Cambodian pastor and his congregation moved to the same site. Soon…
4. LUCKY, The Backstory: Travels
It began with a beach trip. Loading up the ministry bus, which the Cambodian pastor drove, we spent several days…
5. LUCKY, The Backstory: The Last Act
My goal as a volunteer had been to remain with the program until the first participants, still the core of…
Writing the Historical Novel, Part 3: When the “Real” History Presents a Problem
Fiction is fiction, which means it doesn’t require absolute historical accuracy. But serious fiction writers often want to convey a…
Writing the Historical Novel, Part 2: Using History
A novel that melds both history and fiction may at times seem paradoxical. But in the broader definition, this is…
Writing the Historical Novel, Part 1
When I began writing fiction, I never thought of myself as a historical novelist. Yet my two published novels tell…
6. For Such a Time as This: Reflections on A STONE FOR BREAD, Saints and Martyrs
I recently read The Blood of Emmett Till, an extraordinary book by North Carolina author and historian Tim Tyson. The…
5. For Such a Time as This, Reflections on A STONE FOR BREAD: a Nazi Flag in Charlottesville
When I began revising an old manuscript that became A Stone for Bread, I found myself wondering if one more…
4. For Such a Time as This, Reflections on A STONE FOR BREAD: The Slippery Slope
In my last post (see post here), A Stone for Bread‘s protagonist American Henry Beam and several American friends attend a…
3. For Such a Time as This, Reflections on A STONE FOR BREAD: Corruption
The world’s great religions understand human fallibility and address it in varying ways through the Torah, the Christ, the Koran…
2. For Such a Time as This, Reflections on A STONE FOR BREAD: A Hole in the Heart
Years ago when I was teaching at Greensboro College, I attended a guest lecture by Doris Kearns Goodwin where she…
1. For Such a Time as This*, Reflections on A STONE FOR BREAD
If you’ve never read Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, now might be a good time. It’s the classic…
X. On Becoming a Writer: North Carolina
I end my series “On Becoming a Writer” in North Carolina, where I have lived since leaving New York. I…
IX. On Becoming a Writer: New York City
After seven years in South Carolina, I cashed in my small savings, rented a U-Haul and moved my few belongings,…