By Nava Atlas | On April 16, 2017 | Updated June 30, 2020 | Comments (2)
Virginia Woolf famously wrote, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Leaving aside the question of what a woman writes—fiction or nonfiction, prose or poetry, journalism or blog posts, just how important is solitude for writers? How critical is it to have a room of one’s own?
In learning about the writing lives of classic women authors, the universality of the issues and struggles all writers experience is striking. Finding quiet time to write and a modicum of privacy was as great a challenge in the 19th century as it is for today’s writing women. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On April 10, 2017 | Updated October 17, 2022 | Comments (0)
Eudora Welty (1909 – 2001), the respected Southern American author, was known for her ability to capture a sense of place in her novels, stories, and memoirs. Her work explores the separateness of individuals, the character of communities, family relationships, and the healing potential of love.
Welty’s writing style varied, but with no doubt ever that she was in command of her craft. Her stories and novels can be seen as quaint and understated or else wonderfully strange and funny.
Here are some inspiring thoughts on writing by Eudora Welty (most, fittingly, from her 2002 book On Writing), sure to encourage writers no matter where they are on their journeys. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On April 10, 2017 | Updated October 4, 2022 | Comments (0)
The Four Difficuties of Becoming A Writer is a segment excerpted from Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande (1934), proving that good writing advice is timeless.
Note from Literary Ladies: For the most part, Brande used the gendered pronoun he/him/his in the original essay unless specifically referring to a female, as was the style of the time.
Literary Ladies has changed those to female pronouns. Since the majority of our audience is female, it rings more relatable to the ear of our readers. I hope that Ms. Brande, may she rest in peace, will understand. And now, the excerpt by Dorothea Brande: Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 2, 2017 | Updated October 4, 2022 | Comments (0)
Willa Cather (1873-1947) was a craftswoman of the written word. Known for their stark beauty and spare language, her novels reflected her philosophy that writing is a craft to be honed and perfected. Cather’s considerable writing wisdom has been fully preserved.
She always had a great deal of wisdom to impart on the art of writing. Here’s a sampling, excerpted from several of the numerous interviews she granted (despite her professed disdain for the press and with fame in general) between 1915 and the mid-1920s. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 20, 2017 | Updated December 17, 2022 | Comments (4)
As a way to avoid or recover from rejection or after having given up on finding a publisher or agent, writers have increasingly turned to self-publishing. Here’s a bit of surprising self-publishing history by some classic authors.
Gone are the days of having to store copious numbers of cartons of unsold books in the garage or under the bed. User-friendly print-on-demand or e-book services allow writers to create books on an as-needed basis, avoiding the pitfalls of overprinting.
Whether the product ends up only in the hands of the author’s mom and cousins or becomes one of the rare successes that sells like wildfire, it’s good to have options. Read More→
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