Enticements and Taking Stock

It's been almost three weeks in the U.S. since the biography and stories came out. Next week they come out in the UK.   In advance of the UK publication, W.W. Norton UK has put up an excerpt of the biography. You can read the prologue and get a sense of the book. (The links there are for UK readers to purchase the…

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Surprise, It’s Here!

The publication date is supposed to be Feb. 29 for both Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist and Miss Grief and Other Stories. However, it seems both books are being shipped now. Amazon shows them as ready to ship. Those who have pre-ordered them are starting to get emails saying they have been shipped. And the first sighting in a book store happened yesterday…

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Sneak Peek

I'm offering a free sneak peek of Constance Fenimore Woolson's Miss Grief and Other Stories, to be published by W. W. Norton on February 29, to subscribers of my newsletter. You can read my Introduction and the short story "Solomon" before the book hits bookshelves by subscribing to "The Woolson and Alcott Chronicles" here. Woolson (1840-1894) was the most critically acclaimed American woman writer of her era.…

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Gearing Up and Reaching Out

Publication day (Feb. 29) is six and a half weeks away. The pre-publication reviews are in, and now I sit and wait. Or not. I'm not very good at sitting and waiting. So I'm working on getting a few things going. First, another (final) Goodreads giveaway is in progress. If you would like a free copy (not a galley this time) of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait…

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Pre-Pub Reviews–Stars and Influence

One of the new experiences for me as a trade author is the process of getting reviews. When I published my first two book with an academic press, it took a year or more for reviews to start coming in. This time around, as Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist and Miss Grief and Other Stories get ready for publication on February 29, reviews have…

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A Brief History of Pandering

Claire Vaye Watkins’s essay “On Pandering,” about how much her writing has been influenced by a desire for the approval of the “white male lit establishment,” caused such a frenzy that it crashed Tin House’s website. Responses rapidly appeared at Salon, Jezebel, Flavorwire, Slate, and the LA Times, with more to come, surely. . . Thus begins an essay I wrote for The…

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Miss Grief and Other Stories

  The back cover copy for Miss Grief and Other Stories is here: Discover the fiction of a writer once deemed America’s “Novelist Laureate.” Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-94) was considered one of the best writers of her generation. She depicted with precise realism and great empathy a broad landscape of Americans and their ways, from the people of the rural Midwest and deep South…

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Holding My Breath

I'm in that in-between time that reminds me of the days and weeks I spent waiting to hear back from agents and then editors. Now, I'm waiting to hear from readers. A select number of galleys have gone out to respected scholars and writers in hopes of getting an eye-catching blurb. Those are starting to come in--five so far, from writers like Elaine…

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What’s the worst review you ever got? Woolson’s was a doozy.  

At the beginning of Woolson's career, she wrote to William Dean Howells that the “critics seem to hold my very life in their hands.” She could not sleep after reading her reviews. In September 1874, she must have laid awake for nights after reading The Nation’s review of two of her stories just published. Without the support of Howells and other elite male writers,…

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Eliot and Woolson–Lessons in Compassion

I have been reading Rebecca Mead's new book, My Life in Middlemarch, and thinking more about what drew Woolson to George Eliot, one of her favorite authors. When she began her career, Eliot was the most revered female author, so it was natural for her to be inspired by her. In fact, Woolson’s works were often compared to Eliot’s. The Century, for instance,…

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