Blog Archives

Writing on the beach

Everybody’s got summer reading lists. Here’s some ways to astonish and delight yourself with your writer’s wealth in just ten minutes. Yes folks, it’s easy! It’s guaranteed. All you need is a writing implement and paper (or digital equivalent). Don’t

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A reading in Kentucky

Recently I did a reading at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, KY for donors and supporters of the university library. Last year Amy Green, author of the marvelous first novel, Bloodroot, had come. The point, say the organizers, is to

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Dog swims underwater

This is Jesse the dog, looking stately and wise (I think) in his preferred elegant ensemble of sleek black, accessorized in red. One particularity of Jesse is his terror of bodies of water larger than a water bowl. In the

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Becoming your ancestors

This week I went to the lovely Colonial town of Franklin, MA, near Boston, where my book was featured in the public library’s One Book One Community conversation about immigration. The town and library are named after Ben Franklin, who

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Polyps, lawn problems, writing

When we moved to Knoxville in 2000 from my husband’s native Italy, Maurizio was quite fluent in English, but not, as we shall see, up on the American medical system. I was relating the adventures of my new friend Susan

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The gender of books groups

I’ve met quite a few book groups lately. Some gather in private rooms of restaurants that vary from modest to elegant. Some meet in coffee shops or church offices with no refreshments of any kind. Mine meets in a different

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Irma on the Megabus

Riding the Megabus across Virginia on the way to Maryland to see Ellen, my high school best friend. Her book group read my novel and it’s her birthday, reasons to go. The bus is cheap, $30 each round trip Knoxville

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“Is this your first day?”

An unexpected pleasure of publishing a book is connecting with old friends. When I was 14 (see image, left, long hair) we moved perhaps 15 miles away to another New Jersey bedroom community. Fifteen miles might as well be another

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Launch day!

Here is my wonderful friend Emily Dziuban of Charleston in Barnes & Noble with the book! And here also a send from Karl Rice, a former student of my Naples years, with a Las Vegas book store marketing innovation. It

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Let’s make writing harder

I subscribe to Word.A.Day for a daily dose of a new, maybe useful word. Today the feature was the book Never Again, about a gambler who yearns to correct the mistakes of his past by not doing (or saying) anything

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Recent Review
“Absorbing and layered with rich historical details, in Under the Same Blue Sky, Schoenewaldt weaves a tender and at times, heartbreaking story about German-Americans during World War I. With remarkable compassion, the author skillfully portrays conflicted loyalties, the search for belonging, the cruelty of war, and the resilience of the human spirit.”—Ann Weisgarber, author of The Promise and The Personal History of Rachel Dupree

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