“On Giving Up: be swift, be bold, be shameless” Voula Tsoflias

A Dickensian experiment: FAILED….
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

A Dickensian Experiment: one chapter at a time…..
No wonder so many people write novels now…. No wonder so few people wrote novels back then….

“Are you THE Voula?”
“Are you THE Voula?” asked a total stranger….

Teaching creative writing: the elephant in the room
“The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblance.”
Aristotle (330 BC)

Bolder than Mandingo
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Goethe

Honor’s Ghost: why is it taking so long?
“I took my revenge on Bill when he died. I didn’t say Rest in Peace. No peace for the wicked that’s what I said; and I meant it.” Annie Griffin in Honor’s Ghost

The Fairy Dust of Fiction
“To know who you are, you have to have a place to come from’’ Carson McCullers

Memorable reads of 2013
“Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.” Khaled Hosseini

Unhappy beginnings
“And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness. And they did live.” Stephen King, The Dark Tower