Randy Susan Meyers's Blog
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Jan.30.2012
Beyond the Margins (my multi-writer blog) has finally persuaded Ryan Gosling to take time out of his busy schedule as an Internet meme to shine a little love our way. Give it up for a very special...Literary Ryan Gosling.
continued at...
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Jan.24.2012
By Randy Susan Meyers
“My definition (for myself) of a working title is: A title that doesn't work.” Robin Black
Picture having a baby. You named that baby so soon after conception. Dear little Lev. It’s the Russian version of your father’s name. It has great...
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Apr.22.2011
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
For every moment of awe a writer has at seeing her book on a shelf, at being told by readers what comfort they found in your words, come the times when you read the word “blech” in a reader’s review. It’s part of the business and there’s no...
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Feb.06.2011
A parent’s tragedy will always influence the life of their children—often to an overwhelming degree. Writing fiction from the emotional truth of one’s past can be liberating and also confusing. How do writers use their past without being wedded to events as they happened? How do we write honestly,...
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Dec.10.2010
Want to make a writer shudder? Ask them if they’ve queried yet. Last year I led a workshop on The Great American Query Letter and the participants shuffled in with the reluctance (not to say dread) of women about to try on bathing suits in an open-corral fitting room.
A co-ed one.
But like a job...
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Nov.24.2010
Libraries: Librarians recommend our books, buy our books, shelve our books, and provide forums for us to discuss our books. Now we can support the libraries by joining Authors for Libraries, a program of the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends, and Foundation.
Social Media for...
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Oct.22.2010
There something a little creepy about knowing that as my friends, family, neighbors, and mailman read the novel I wrote, that they're probably thinking: So that's what she thinks about when she has sex! Oh, that's how she really views her kids! My God, she lies to her husband?
No matter how much I...
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Oct.04.2010
When we were younger (in our twenties) my best friend and I talked about the unimaginable horror of being without each other. Now that we're older, and the idea of folks our age dying is no longer as unthinkably shocking as it was back then, we barely talk about it-it's too frightening, too awful,...
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Sep.28.2010
I tried to resist writing this—especially after my plea against categorizing authors. Plus, so many of us hide our age in this world of never-get-old, unearthing this information, even in our Googlized world, was difficult.
But, recently, along with the plethora of lists of writers under 40, I was...
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Aug.26.2010
Writers talk much and write much (including me) about the difficulty of finding that perfect first line. Sometimes I want to create entire books because a great first line popped into my head. Tougher, can be that last line. Tougher because it’s culminating an entire world.
The last line is a...
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Jul.29.2010
"But it really happened."
I was in an adult-ed writer's group when I first heard this. I watched the woman become tenser and grimmer as the class-gently and with compassion-suggested that the gruesome events on the page could be presented in a manner more conducive to engaging the reader...
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Jul.23.2010
I read a post on author Tayari Jones’ blog earlier this month, that hasn’t left my mind. She asks why books by black writers aren’t considered universal, starting her post with these words:
“In the last few years, black writers have been speaking out about double standards in the world of...
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Jun.29.2010
“To write simply is as difficult as to be good.”
Somerset Maugham
Micro-revision // First Steps
After the macro revision and after deconstructing your premise, themes, etc put your manuscript away. Let it cool down. As written so brilliantly by Kathy Crowley in Beyond The Margins, what happens in...
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Jun.28.2010
Just when you think you're done with revision, guess what? There's room to do one more (or maybe two, or three.) The smarted thing my agent did for me recently (uh, except for selling my book) was suggesting that one more revision on my recent book would be beneficial. (Her words were a little more...
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Jun.16.2010
The only thing I didn't love about Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace was finishing it, because then it was over and I had to leave her world. Lucky you, you can still look forward to it.
If you want the perfect book to read while you lie in your hammock this summer, even if it's only the summer...
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“…sharp and biting, and sometimes wickedly funny when the author skewers Boston’s class and neighborhood dividing lines, but it has a lot of heart, too. Meyers writes beautifully about a formerly good marriage — the simple joys of stability, the pleasures of veteran intimacy — and deftly dissects just how ugly things can get after infidelity.”
”
—Boston Globe
About Randy Susan
The drama of Randy Susan Meyers' novels is informed by her work with violent offenders and families impacted by emotional and family violence. Raised in Brooklyn, Randy now lives in Boston with her husband, where she teaches writing seminars for Grub Street...
Connections
Causes Randy Susan Meyers Supports
Jane Doe
Women for Women
Rosie's Place
New England Home for Little Wanderers
Fistula Foundation