I was planning to break until the fall but, due to demand, I am offering two new classes in June: WRITING FICTION: SETTING AND DESCRIPTION START DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 2019 DURATION: 4 weeks COURSE DESCRIPTION: Great story has a memorable sense of place. In this four-week course you will discover why setting and description are the...
I'm thrilled to be hosted on Joanna Penn's The Creative Penn today. Thank you so much for having me on your site. Writing Tips: Writing Beyond The 5 Senses The most useful way to show what you want to say is to tap into the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing and get into the 'why' behind each sense. In other words, you must ...
California's Dime Show Review! I'm thrilled to share that my poem, "Late Night on the Phone" was just accepted to Dime Show Review for online publication and they are considering it for their three times a year print run. Thank you to editor Kae Sable for accepting my poem.
In South Africa's Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, I discuss improving setting in your story.
Enjoy the view. Today's vlog was filmed at Chapman's Peak, a mountain on the western side of the Cape Peninsula, between Hout Bay and Noordhoek in Cape Town, South Africa.
How beautiful are these backgrounds? The cover photo is Cape Town's Table Mountain and this vlog was filmed at Chapman's Peak, overlooking Hout Bay, Cape Town, South Africa.
Symbolism is one of the most underused techniques when it comes to story setting. There's no better place to talk about setting than in Cape Town's beautiful Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden.
I've been publishing in literary magazines since 2005 and, I admit, I'm addicted. I've had four novels accepted for publication to small presses, an offer of a young adult series and yet I always have at least a handful of submissions out there, far beyond what's considered the usual expiry date for writers. I can't seem to stop, though that's craz...
Today's question is about adding some levity to your flash fiction. You don't want to write an extended joke. What's the difference?
Today's question: How do I know when to extend my flash into a short story?
He sighs and holds his glass up remembering things that happened years ago. I try to diminish myself in my chair, so he'll see his memories and share them instead of seeing me."I begged your father to run away to the kibbutz with me. So many young people were doing it then. There was no food in Jerusalem. But he was the oldest, and he wouldn't leav...
It was a pleasure to talk with Laura Parish, who hosts the fiction readers and writers blog, Novel Kicks. Thank you so much for having me. My first interview of 2019 and my first in the UK! Hi Gila, thank you for joining me today. Your novel is called Passport Control. Can you tell me about it and what inspired the story? Passport Control is a comi...
I'm so pleased to share Rebecca Klempner's review of Passport Control with you. Reviewed by Rebecca Klempner Gila Green's recent novel, Passport Control, is not light entertainment. But it's perfect for those readers interested in a suspenseful, well-written, and thought-provoking piece of literary fiction that may make them deeply uncom...
Register Now: Come as you are, with a fifth version of a piece you've been working on since your high school graduation or as a writer who has never heard of flash until you saw this advertisement and rushed to sign up. In the first part of this masterclass, we'll define flash fiction and take you all the way from idea to premise to micro fla...
I can't sum up how I feel about libraries better than this. I already have a vlog on writers block. Here's another take. This is my prompt to remind me to write a longer piece on podcasts. For now, This American Life podcast is an excellent cure for writer's block.
"What I draw from is not a photographic memory, but an emotional one." Thank you, Amy Tan. I reread that again and again. I must use this as a prompt to write about the truths in fiction. What is the purpose of fiction? To write what I cannot say. Though I cannot tell you what happened for so many reasons (pain, shame), if I...
Live Write thrive, Writers Write, Christi Craig, Kathy Steinemann, Kathryn Schleich, Writers Helping Writers, Fiction Magazine, The Book Designer, The Millions, WOW-Women on Writing hailing from USA, Canada, and South Africa. The writing community is global. Writers take note and think BIG.
Thank you so much to life coach Bev Ehrlich, originally of Cape Town, South Africa, now of Modiin, Israel for her interview today. I am thrilled to be part of her "make your dream come true" series on Youtube, which she has titled Wisdom Wednesdays.
ONLINE RESOURCES FOR JEWISH WOMEN WraptNashimJewish Women's Archive Lillith Momentum Canada JEWISH PLACES TO PUBLISHJewish Literary JournalJewish FictionSephardic HorizonsThe Nosher (recipes, nonfcition)Women in Judaism (Canada, academic journal) ...
I'm so excited to have Yael Shahar with me on my blog. I love introducing people to new fellow authors who live in Israel. We've met in cyberspace a few times but I find an interview is really a great way to connect with a writer and her work and this work I find particularly intriguing. Please welcome Yael Shahar. Bio Yael Shahar was born in ...
A Phone Call from Mom "Do you know what your brother did when he finished reading your novel?" my mother asks. "He WhatsApped me," I answer. "'Just finished your book. Great read'." I reread my brother's exact words from my phone. There is a cheery note in my voice because I've already won this conversation. With this book publication there will be...
Publishing Your Story While publication is never guaranteed (unless you're self-publishing, but that's another post), there are a number of things you can do to help your story find a home. Start with this seven-point guide: 1. Don't rush. Is your story ready for publication? One of the biggest mistakes new writers make is sending out th...
A word after a word after a word is power." –Margaret Atwood Writing isn't just for writers, it's for anyone with a small business to promote. You might think as an author and book editor that most of my clients are other authors. Think again. People don't write new books every month. Many people take years to finish a first draft. If I waited unti...
In 2013, I published my first novel King of the Class (KOTC). Three months later I wrote a post titled "What I learned from Publishing my First Novel." It was a necessary integration of what I'd gleaned after three months of full-time, dedicated hard work—the kind of 24-hour work after which you can't even think about the topic. I was burnt out of...
I won't make you wait. Here are three things I learned from writing my second novel Passport Control. 1. You can deviate from the traditional coming-of-age structure. Classically, protagonists in coming-of-age stories encounter a singularly painful experience that make them realize once and for all that they are alone in the world. They soon ...
I am thrilled to be hosted today by Christi Craig. In addition to my guest post, we are having a book giveaway courtesy of my publisher S&H Publishing.
Thank you Sasson Magazine for posting "Roller Coaster," an excerpt from my novel in stories White Zion, forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press, April 2019. Faith was too late getting down the stairs. By the time she made it into the living room it was over. She could only look from her son to her husband. Shock parachuted into the room li...
Today I was thrilled to be hosted on the Ottawa Mommy Club blog. Your Failure to Thrive Baby Doesn't make you a Failure as a Mother When most mothers think of challenging events in the first two years of an average child's life, they might think of vaccinations, fevers, tantrums, and night-waking. What about weighings? Believe it or not, for some m...
This suspense/thriller asks, if you were to walk away from your family, would you ever go back, even if you received a desperate text message?
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This family drama is part crime fiction and part domestic noir. With A Good Eye will make you question: can you ever save anyone but yourself and do any of us ever really leave home?
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White Zion is a novel in stories forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press (April 2019). The novel takes readers into the worlds of 19th century Yemen, pre-State Israel, modern Israel and modern Canada...
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Miriam Gil knows little about Israel. Her father won’t talk about his life there or the brother he left behind when he came to Canada. Hurt and angry when he tells her to move out to make room for his new girlfriend, she enrolls in an Israeli university. She falls in love with Guy...
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Eve and Manny are engaged in post-civil war Israel, but Manny has a secret: he’s falling in love with his religious roots and turning his back on moral relativism. As their wedding date approaches...
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