Ever wonder what it would be like if two fantastical creatures from different cultures met each other and hit it off? Look no further than Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni, and its thrilling sequel, The Hidden Palace. I dusted off my copy of The Golem and the Jinni and binge read it about three days before I started […]

  This is the first time I’ve recommended a graphic novel, but that’s because this is one monstrously delicious spooky season treat you won’t want to miss. Sarah Andersen is perhaps best known for her well-loved comics, Sarah’s Scribbles, yet that same wry humor and irresistible whimsy makes its way into her charming girl-meets-boy tale, Fangs.  […]

  You’ve read the articles on writing and productivity. You know what they say, or rather, how they make you feel. If you’re not writing every day, however many thousands of words, you’re not a real writer. Plant butt in chair. Produce on demand, without exception. This is what you’ll have to do if you expect […]

From the author of Mexican Gothic and Gods of Jade and Shadow, we now have a scintillating noir thriller set in 1970’s Mexico City during the student uprisings of the Guerra sucia, the Mexican theater of the Cold War. I could not put this book down. From the outset, I was drawn to the rather […]

  I took pains recently to interview myself after a particularly good writing session, one in which I wrote 2,700 words in a sitting, wrapped up in that most envied of states among writers: the state of flow. Ah, flow! To be completely absorbed in one’s work to the point that everything else fades away […]

  If you’re looking for a cross between H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and The Addams Family, search no further than this month’s book-of-the-month, Tidepool. I’ve been in the mood for Gothic fiction lately, and the haunted seaside town of Tidepool with its washed-up, mutilated corpses and black-gowned Victorian grande dame, Ms. Ada Oliver, did […]

  Listen, I get it. If adding another item to your to-do list every day doesn’t sound like fun, that’s because you might be thinking about journaling the wrong way. Imagine if I told you it’s like talking to the kindest, most understanding, forgiving, and patient person about your deepest hurts, worst nightmares, and most […]

  Much more than the vivid portrayal of an iconic American star’s rise to fame, Blonde is a masterful recounting of the rich inner life of Norma Jeane Baker, the orphan fated to become one of the most celebrated actresses of her time, Marilyn Monroe. I’ve grown to love the seamless, floating narrative style of Joyce […]

  Stephen King used to write in his laundry room. Edith Wharton wrote while covered up in bed, her dog on one side, an inkwell on the other. Charles Dickens had his beloved desk shipped to him when he knew he would be gone from home awhile. Agatha Christie would sit in her large Victorian […]

  “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” Never have the great playwright’s words rung so true as in this sweeping tale of 1580’s England, a country reeling from the ravages of the Black Death as one family in particular struggles to recover from an untimely loss. Never once in this […]