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Simon & Schuster authors speak out on the topics that inspire them

A gossip queen dissecting politics? A political pundit musing about sports? A romance novelist waxing poetic on music? You read it here first... see what your favorite literary personalities have to say about life beyond books.

Most Recent Posts

What about the Other Characters?

By Marion Dane Bauer - June 5, 2012

Most readers, I suspect, assume that a story’s perceiving character will come from the writer’s own psyche, at least to some degree. Not that authors must commit murder to write from the perspective of a murderer, but to do so we must be able to get in touch with the part of ourselves that might, given the right circumstances, be capable of such an act. What about the side...

Computers I Have Known

By Marion Dane Bauer - June 5, 2012

I've been thinking lately about computers I have worked with. I don't usually have much of a relationship with machines. The cars I drive are only practical necessities, something to move me farther and faster than my feet can manage on their own. I have strong opinions about stoves, hate the electric ones, love the instant-on/instant-off of a gas flame. And I find a stick...

Comic: Interviewing Potatoes For I'M BORED

By Debbie Ridpath Ohi - June 4, 2012

Picking the right Potato character for I'M BORED was a challenge, so I decided to conduct some in-depth interviews:http://debbieohi.com/im-bored-scrapbook/2012/3/28/im-bored-comic-the-interviews.html

Book news, book events, and book releases

By Mary Alice Monroe - May 18, 2012

What a spring season! A lot is happening and I'm excited to share all the great news with you- book releases, signing events, book recognitions and so much more. Here we go--- THE BUTTERFLY'S DAUGHTER, just released last month in trade paperback, and has been selected as a 2012 SIBA Book Award Finalist for the year's Best Book. (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance). I'm...

Notes from the Road

By Mary Alice Monroe - May 18, 2012

It's the second week of the BEACH HOUSE MEMORIES book tour, and so far it has been a memorable and exhilarating adventure. One of the most amazing moments happened Monday afternoon during the "Moveable Feast" literary luncheon in Pawleys Island, hosted by Litchfield Books. It filled my eyes with tears. Before I explain why, let me share a little background first. ...

By Jessica Burkhart - May 16, 2012

Wow, it's been a LONG time since I've been on the Author Portal. *hides head in shame* It's got some supercool upgrades and I'll be checking in and updating my info more frequently. I'm eagerly anticipating the release of INITIATION (Canterwood Crest #13). Hurry, January 3! xoxo

By Sarah Alderson - May 14, 2012

Download a copy of my short story CATCHING SUKI. It’s FREE for a limited time AND you’ll be helping support an amazing charity that supports girl changemakers across the globe! Here’s the blurb… The Unit are closing in and Demos needs one of his team to go deep cover. Enter Suki. Fashion obsessed, boy-crazy and more than a little kooky, Suki is a mind reader with a...

Small Impossibilities

By Mark Griffiths - May 14, 2012

How do you achieve the impossible? Surely in fantasy fiction it's easy? Anything can happen, can't it? Perhaps. But if your story is to be appear real and not the febrile outpourings of an overheated brain (yes, I'm looking at you, the film Avatar), it pays to keep two factors in mind. The first is to place your fantasy within a believable setting. Jaws works so well...

Space Lizards in Church

By Mark Griffiths - May 14, 2012

It was one of those Monday mornings when you find yourself in a church talking to 300 children about space lizards. It was the first event of my author mini-tour for Space Lizards Stole My Brain! Three hundred kids from 9 different schools had squeezed into Christ Church in Wesham, Lancashire to hear me read from my novel and talk about writing comedy. I could tell it was...

Bringing Characters to Life

By Marion Dane Bauer - May 11, 2012

I've been talking about fictional character as illusion, created out of my own psyche or borrowed from the world around me. I find it a fascinating concept to sort, even after nearly forty years of writing fiction. The question of how characters are brought to seeming life is never fully answered, partly because the process changes from writer to writer and story to story and...

Marion Dane Bauer celebrates the publication of Little Dog, Lost

By Marion Dane Bauer - May 7, 2012

Win a set of 35 bookmarks (2" x 6" in size), one for each child in your classroom. “Like” Marion’s Facebook page, sign up to follow Marion's blog (in the column to the right)—lots of good information about writing you can use with your students—or sign up for e-mail announcements on Marion’s home page between May 1st and May 21st and we’ll send you a pack of...

Borrowing characters from real life

By Marion Dane Bauer - May 7, 2012

When my daughter was ten or eleven, she used to say from time to time, “Mom, write a book about me. You could call it Heavens to Elisabeth.” “Beth-Alison,” I’d say, “I can’t write a book about you. I don’t know you well enough.” “Oh, Mom,” she’d say, in utter disgust, and that was the end of the discussion. But the truth is I didn’t know her well...

The Illusion of “Real” Characters

By Marion Dane Bauer - May 7, 2012

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Debating the War on Women - Discussion in "Foreign Policy"

By Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf - May 1, 2012

As Islam has spread throughout the world, it has combined religion with native cultural practices. Many centuries later, separating the religion from the underlying culture has become difficult. That's why Islam as practiced in Egypt differs from, say, Islam as practiced in Malaysia.Mona Eltahawy describes cultural practices in Egypt and the Middle East that predate Islam yet...

Longing, the Core of Every Story

By Marion Dane Bauer - April 19, 2012

Last week I mentioned that every story springs from the writer's own longing. Even the most careful readers would find it impossible to assemble the facts of my life from my stories, but they would have little difficulty peering into my soul. The longing each story is built upon provides an exceedingly transparent window. Some elements of my stories come from small, if once...

Did That Really Happen?

By Marion Dane Bauer - April 19, 2012

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More About Researching for Fiction

By Marion Dane Bauer - April 19, 2012

Not every story has to be lived to be written. That's what imagination is for. If writers are going to produce more than one or two novels, they are probably going to have to extend their experience through the most readily available source . . . reading. I need to do research in order to be able to write many of my novels. Some of that research, as I wrote last week, has been...

A Research Trip

By Marion Dane Bauer - April 19, 2012

I’ve just returned from a research trip for the young-adult novel I’m working on, Blue-Eyed Wolf. Well, actually, it was a mixture of a research trip and a retreat with a friend who needed some time away from home to concentrate on her writing. We went to Gunflint Lodge, a marvelous old Minnesota resort on the Gunflint Trail north of Lake Superior. The time we spent...

Getting Real with Virtual Visits

By Trudi Trueit - April 3, 2012

I can still remember how nervous I was doing my first Skype author visit with a school in Virginia a year ago. As a children’s author, I’d done my share of standing in front of classrooms. I’d gotten pretty good at gauging if my presentation was going too fast or too slow, if it was a bit above or below my audience’s grasp. In person, I could encourage a timid student to...

By Penny Hancock - March 26, 2012

Why am I overcome with melancholy today? OK it's a dire time of the year, dark already at 4.00 pm and it's been overcast since it tried to get light. Christmas is over, we're all back at school and work. But it isn't just this. Tideline came out on Thursday to some great reviews so why aren't I dancing with excitement? Then I realise. Today my middle daughter went back to uni....

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