Category: review
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What our bookstores say about us
I don’t know how I discovered Possible Futures, a bookstore and “community bookspace,” but visiting there was an experience, a special treat for the side of my publisher and academic self interested in critical theory and marginalized voices. I am linking to the about page on their website here, because…
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Review: Janet Evanovich How I Write
I finished Janet Evanovich’s How I Write, and I expected it to disappoint. Evanovich reports in the book that it takes laborious effort to make her Stephanie Plum novels read so simply. So, like the easy tone of her fiction, her writing craft book is also conversational. The book released…
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Meanwhile at Mary Meuser Library
While I offer workshops at the Easton Area Public Library, I serve on the board of trustees for my local public library, the Mary Meuser Memorial Library in quaint Wilson Borough, Pa., which shares a zip code with neighboring Easton. I first joined the library board circa 2008 when my now-college-aged child…
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Writing Craft Books at Easton Library
I reached out to my friends at Easton Area Public Library, where I have free monthly writers workshops on the second Thursday of the month*, asking about what writing craft books they have in their collection. (It looks like most of them are cataloged around 808 if you plan on browsing the…
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Used Books in Coopersburg
Let’s come back to the Lehigh Valley and talk about our recent visit to Medina Books and Coffee on Main Street in Coopersburg, Pa. For our Readers: Medina Books and Coffee If you are a reader, Medina Books and Coffee has recently expanded their presence in Coopersburg, Pa. The store is a…
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Update on Writing Craft Books
Writing Craft Books In 2025, I hope to read or reread one writing craft book per month and add a review of it to this newsletter and to the curated, annotated bibliography available to my paid Substack subscribers. I have finished The People’s Guide to Publishing by Joe Biel of Microcosm Publishing. But the…
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My five-star reads of 2024
This list does not include any books by Parisian Phoenix authors or books that I have worked on as editor. These are the books I read this year that I thought deserved top marks– which is only 12 out of the 76 books I finished in 2024.
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Moravian Book Shop’s impact on my core memories of college
I have been working on a new resource for my paid subscribers of my Substack newsletter. It’s a page of writing craft books and my reviews of them. The list is available free here, but here you can taste what some of these books mean to me. BOOK: Shaughnessy, Susan.…
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Lessons from George Carlin
After two weeks of my daughter’s struggle with a double ear infection, vertigo and laryngitis— probably brought on by a mix of swinging weather between spring and deep winter & attending a late semester college frat party— I suddenly find myself drowning in phlegm with a cough. The doctor sees…
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