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Writing historical fiction: sometime journal of a New York City novelist

a few words this October day for my friends and readers!

Hudson River at sunset
Autumn is coming into New York; I take walks by the gray Hudson River with its moored boats at the Boat Basin and watch leaves tumble down the sidewalk before me. I mark down all the concerts I want to hear this year, and hope I'll get to most of them. I keep adding  Read More 
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Total heaven! - another exhibition of impressionism at the Met Museum!

Camille or The Green Dress by the 25-year-old Claude Monet
My friend Kimberly and I took the cross town bus in NYC on Saturday night and in fifteen minutes, were standing at the entrance of the amazing exhibition "Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And the very first painting we saw was Monet's painting of Camille when she was nineteen in a borrowed green and black walking dress; I never saw the original as it hangs normally in a museum in Bremen.

(The Met opened in 1872, seven years after this painting was created.)

There were also several other original paintings borrowed from other museums of Camille...plus dress reproductions, parasols, fans, cosmetic boxes, prints from  Read More 
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Christmas Day

my husband and our Christmas tree
Wishing everyone a Christmastide of friendship and peace!
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Hard to believe December is here already!

New York City Christmas tree salesmen (from the NY Daily News)
I am writing always and have finished something and well along with something else - more to come! Meanwhile it has been an exciting late autumn with my first presentation of INSIDE THE WORLD OF THE NOVELIST, more things as always for CLAUDE & CAMILLE, and two talks at the  Read More 
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a guest blog from the author of A VIOLET SEASON, New York State 1898

NOTE ABOUT MY GUEST AUTHOR:

This rainy and pre-hurricane day in NYC, I want to extend a warm welcome to Kathy Leonard Czepiel, the author of A Violet Season, a historical novel set on a Hudson Valley violet farm on the eve of the twentieth century. I found her book the old-fashioned way: browsing in a book shop! Kathy is the recipient of a 2012 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and her  Read More 
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The Next Big Thing: Find Out What I'm Working On

Elizabeth Barrett Browning about the time of her marriage
Writers are tagging writers in this new questionnaire going around the web. What's the next big thing we're working on? Thanks to historical novelist Christy English for tagging me!

What is your working title of your book?
ELIZABETH’S ROOM. I am sure we won’t end up with this title!

Where did the idea come from for the book?
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just a little bit of news of my daily life...

LIRR Penn Station NYC - I was going to Track 21 (see sign!)
I have been very slow to write here...a very full day and I always want to find another eight hours somewhere because I need them. I wrote in such a frenzy of creativity this morning that I could not bear to stop. Off to physical therapy for a small rotary cuff injury: too  Read More 
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"I'm late!" said the White Rabbit (and the author)


...."I'm late." Which is what I seem to be these days but at least I am moving ahead in several areas. We are preparing my first two novels (NICHOLAS COOKE and THE PHYSICIAN OF LONDON) as e-books which is taking some time as they must be scanned (no electronic copies available) and proofed etc. so the first one will be available by the end of August. The two books got marvelous reviews and the second won the American Book Award. And finally I am spending serious hours on pulling the draft of the concluding book of the trilogy together. I have been working on it in bits over the years but I think this is the time for it to flower. Read More 
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all sorts of new and lovely things in this writer's life

with writer Kimberly Eve at the Cloisters
Well no, I have not finished revising my novels...and that is plural! Two are competing for my attention and one of them better be off to my agent/publisher by the end of summer! I went to a panel on historical fiction last night at the NYC branch of The Women's National Book  Read More 
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a new Indie novel about a young singer debuts

I am so delighted to welcome novelist Susan Dormady Eisenberg to my blog. Susan is the author of THE VOICE I JUST HEARD, a coming-of-age story about a young soprano who wants to sing musicals on Broadway and the rather lost, utterly appealing baritone with whom she falls in love.

In addition to asking  Read More 
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