written by Lois Winston

Here’s a dirty little secret: Most editors and agents will toss a manuscript aside after a page or two if the voice/style/story hasn’t hooked them by that point. One agent has even published a book on the importance of the first five pages.

I would like to distill this down further and suggest that an author needs to hook the reader with an opening sentence. As someone who has judged many writing contests and read countless first chapters, I’ve come across hundreds of openings with what I can only describe as BLAH first sentences. The author goes on to compound the problem by then giving the reader several paragraphs, if not pages, of either backstory or boring description. The author may have a fantastic story, but if she put her readers to sleep before they get to that story, she’s got problems. A good opening doesn’t give a reader an excuse to put down a book. It makes the reader want to read more to find out what happens next.

One of the best opening sentences I’ve ever read was from KISS AN ANGEL by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. That book’s first sentence is: Daisy Devreaux had forgotten her bridegroom’s name. Now how can you not go on reading after that? What a killer sentence! It grabs the reader and drags her into the story.

The first sentence should make the reader want to read the second sentence. The hook doesn’t have to be defined in the first sentence, but that first sentence should lead you into the next. And that one to the next. Until you have a paragraph that becomes a hook that grabs you as a reader and won’t let go. That first paragraph should do for the first page what the first sentence did for the first paragraph, and the first page should do for the subsequent pages what the first paragraph did for the first page.

The opening of a book should be filled with interesting action and/or dialogue that intrigues the reader and makes her want to continue reading. One of the worst mistakes an author can make is to fill the opening of her book with paragraph after paragraph of backstory or description. The opening of a book is meant to suck the reader into the world the author has created. Backstory can come later, trickling in to tease the reader to continue reading more, not as information dumps that pull the reader from the story. A good opening will include only the barest minimum of backstory that is essential for that moment.

As for description, it should be woven into the narrative and dialogue. Nothing bores a reader more than long paragraphs describing everything from the length of the heroine’s hair to the color of her toenail polish. It pulls the reader from the story. And pulling the reader from the story is a BAD thing. It adversely affects the pacing of the book, and good pacing is something that is important to a well-written manuscript.

Sometimes the plot and conflict might not be evident in the opening of the book, but there should be enough of a tease within that opening to give the reader an indication of events to come. Dialogue or narrative action are usually the best ways for a writer to accomplish this. A good book will often begin by throwing the reader right into the middle of a conversation or event.

Be aware, though, that gimmickry has no place in good fiction. If you open your book with a situation that’s cliché or right out of a TV sit-com, it will stand out like a neon sign and not act as a hook to draw the reader into the story. The best hooks will draw the reader into the book without the reader even being aware that there is a hook. If a hook is too obvious, all the reader will see is the hook and not be drawn into the story.

However, when opening your book, don’t think in terms of ‘this could never happen.’ Remember that truth is often stranger than fiction, and just because an author creates a situation that’s unfamiliar to the reader, it doesn’t mean that the situation doesn’t or can’t exist. Think about it — the secret baby and marriage of convenience are two of the most popular plots in romance fiction. Yet how many of us have ever met someone who had a secret baby or was thrust into a marriage of convenience? What you need to think about is whether you have created a situation that enables the reader to suspend disbelief and enter the world you’ve created. And by ‘world’ I don’t necessarily mean a paranormal plot. The ‘world’ is the story the author is writing and the characters she’s created to populate that world.

So begin your books by sucking the reader into your world.

© 2007 Lois Winston

***
Award-winning author Lois Winston writes humorous, cross-genre, contemporary novels. She often draws upon her extensive experience as a crafts designer for much of her source material. Her first book, TALK GERTIE TO ME, a combination chick lit/hen lit/romantic comedy with a touch of the paranormal, was an April 2006 release and has to date won a Readers and Bookbuyers Best award and racked up nominations for a Reviewers Choice Award, a Golden Leaf Award, and a Beacon Award. LOVE, LIES & A DOUBLE SHOT OF DECEPTION, a mom-lit romantic suspense, was a June 2007 release.

Lois also contributed to DREAMS & DESIRES, a charity anthology of 19 romances by 19 authors which was released in February 2007. All proceeds from this anthology go to a shelter for battered women. In addition, Lois is a contributor to HOUSE UNAUTHORIZED, a November 2007 release. When not writing or designing, you can find Lois trudging through stacks of manuscripts as she hunts for diamonds in the slush piles for the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. Visit Lois at www.loiswinston.com.

Related Link: Fast loans in easy installment payment plans from ThinkCash.

The following is an excerpt from the book:
No Experts Needed: The Meaning of Life According to You!
by Louise Lewis
Published by iUniverse, Inc.
May 2007;$18.95US
978-0-595-42971-4
Copyright © 2007 Louise Lewis

I have always believed that everyone has a book in them. They merely have to take a look at their lives, past or present, to realize that life is indeed stranger than fiction. More likely than not, everyone’s lives would make for quite an entertaining story, to say the least.

Now I’m not saying that I think everyone’s book would be worthy of a Pulitzer or be chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. You’re holding the evidence to back up that statement on both accounts. But I do think there is something special and unique about each of our lives that should be written down and then shared with others. Having said all of that, I was totally unaware of the book that was lurking deep inside of me. I discovered it (or rather it discovered me) when I unexpectedly began a new chapter in my life.

The story I’m sharing with you began when I was set free (laid off) from my job of eleven years selling advertising space for publications in high tech. Being set free simultaneously marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life. From day one of this new chapter, many truths were revealed to me. For instance, I immediately interpreted being set free from my job as something positive from which I would later benefit, rather than something negative that I would be challenged to overcome. Even though it would’ve been easy to panic about no longer having a source of income, I chose not to waste any energy thinking about the negative aspect of the situation.

Another truth that revealed itself was the knowledge that I was supposed to take advantage of the rare opportunity of having some time off. Therefore, I didn’t immediately start looking for another job. Granted, with no source of income, this was an odd decision to make. However, I had worked nonstop since the age of sixteen, and I felt that I deserved some time away from the rat race. That was my story, and I faithfully stuck to it.

Adding to the list of truths was the fact that I knew, without a doubt, that whatever I experienced during this new chapter of my life would have a profound and lasting effect on my future. Without knowing how or why, I was very aware from the start that I was being lovingly, divinely guided toward something special.
The last of my truths was knowing that the significance of the choices I would make during my new chapter would be revealed to me one at a time, and only when I was in the moment - not a minute sooner.

Armed with these truths, I not only felt excited but also well prepared to begin my new chapter. But no matter how ready I felt, I was acutely aware of the fact that if this indeed was a new chapter, nothing but blank pages stared me in the face. Where was I to begin?

After a bit of soul-searching, the one thing I knew for certain was that I wanted my new chapter in life to be based on a commitment to living in Spirit, rather than in Ego.

As I see it, the ego houses the more base elements of human nature, for example, fear, self-doubt, criticism, control issues, and selfishness that if left unchecked, will create negative energy in my life. On the flip side, when my life is focused on Spirit, the ultimate Source of truth, I am guided by more positive elements, such as courage, forgiveness, compassion and generosity.

Therefore, the first step of my journey involved making a commitment to allow Spirit to guide my every move and to let nothing stand in the way of that. I was convinced that by following Spirit, the pages of my new chapter would be filled with a very special story, one that would involve adventure, personal growth, and a change in lifestyle.

As my new chapter developed, my path crossed with those of many wonderful people — normal, everyday folks whom I met during my travels, as well as in my own backyard. I listened to their stories along the way. After each encounter, I asked these people (along with family and friends) for a gift. I asked everyone to answer one question: what is the meaning of life?

I also insisted that each person provide a spontaneous answer. In other words, he or she had to write the answer right then and there, while in my presence. Why did I insist on this? To answer that question, I have to adapt the saying “God lives in the details.” My version goes something like this: I believe that God (the ultimate truth) lives in the spontaneous moment. In other words, I believe that what you know to be true can be communicated in the moment, right now, without long deliberation or second-guessing. And you certainly don’t need an expert to tell you what you already know.

Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of people I met agreed to join in on the adventure of my book. And I walked away from this journey with my heart filled with memorable gifts that will reward me until the end of my days.

Writing this book has been a personal journey for me as well as for some of the people you are about to meet. Due to the personal nature of some of their stories, I am not divulging every detail out of respect for each person. However, I will share with you the fact that with each person I met, I was reminded that I was not alone.
With each meeting, I was reminded that no matter what their race, religion, or geography, people possess far more similarities than they do differences. When you think about it, we all eventually experience pretty much the same stuff that life dishes out: the same joys, the same pain, the same sorrow. Somehow, believing this allows me to walk through life with a greater sense of belonging in the world.
I will forever be grateful to the people I met along the way. Because of them, I’m more committed than ever to being a more curious participant in life, a more compassionate listener, and a more adamant believer in the saying “We are all alike.”

I know that I cannot change the whole world, but I most certainly can change my world by asking those around me to lay focus to the meaning in their life. Therefore, it is my sincere hope that this book ignites conscious thought so that more people can find their own answers to the meaning of life. With this hope in my heart, I invite you to begin your own journey of discovery, which may very well begin by you asking this question to those people who cross your path. You’ll be amazed by what you hear.

And so, the tale of my journey begins. Thank you for coming along!
(more…)

When someone asks why write? My answer — writing is like making love. When they ask how to write? Same answer. For each writer the act of writing is as individual as his/her own personality.

I write because I have to. I have to because I want to. I want to because I love it. When I was a journalist for the Hollywood Reporter magazine and Capital Style, I wrote my pieces in a smart-sassy magazine journalist’s voice. In my head, I was a cross between Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday and Dorothy Parker. But when I started to write my first novel — historical fiction set in Paris in the time of the Impressionists, I discovered I had to develop a new way of writing, a new “voice.” This voice was more lyrical, even poetic. I did read poetry to develop a capacity for metaphor. I read or re-visited classic novels written decades, even centuries ago to understand why they endure.

I feel presumptuous giving advice to writers on how to write. There are far better sources for that: E.M. Forester’s Aspects of the Novel is a classic and as useful today as when it was written in 1927. There are dozens of excellent how-to books for writers that outline the craft. Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seger is helpful. Is writing a craft or an art? It’s both. To learn the mechanics of the craft, consult those manuals. To learn the art, consult your heart. I would like to share my experience writing my first novel and hope it resonates with other writers.

Inspiration. I believe the inspiration, the idea, for a book comes from the Universe. In my experience, my novel came to me as I was studying for an exam on the Impressionists for my class at Christie’s Education graduate program. For me, reading that art history textbook was as fascinating as reading a novel. Were there any novels about these people I wondered? In the year 2000, I didn’t know of any. I had seen clips of a film about Vincent Van Gogh starring Kirk Douglas. And of course, the musical Gigi loosely based on a story by Colette. But these were both Hollywoodized and set after the truly important years of 1860-1870.

Characters. My novel began with the characters. I knew it was important for my main characters to change as they experienced their lives. I wanted the heroine, in particular, to become a changed person at the end of the story from who she was in the beginning because that is true to real life. I wrote concise back-stories on index cards for each character so I would know where/when they were born, their parentage, their childhoods — all the factors that shaped them to become who they were in the novel. I didn’t use the back-story in the narrative, but the footprint was there between the lines.

Place and time. The more hours I spent at the library researching the history, the art, the politics, the changes in technology and social relations, the more at home I felt in that setting and knew I could transport others there with me. The number of reference books I read is prodigious. But I’m a nerd and love that aspect of writing. I worked as a library assistant in college and still feel in a safety cocoon in the musty stacks of a library.

Plot. Plot unfolds as life does — as a consequence of characters’ choices, actions and reactions. In my case, plot was also guided by history because historical fiction must be accurate at all costs on the “history” side. The fiction side can be pure fun. Writers are all a bit mad, I think, and I am no exception. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, hearing in my head the perfect dialogue between two of my characters for a scene. Of course, I got up and scribbled down some notes before falling back asleep.

Music true to the time period was helpful for me at some points in the narrative process. I deduced that listening to the music that my characters would have listened to in 1867 would help put me in their world. It was transgressive and I credit the verisimilitude of some emotional passages in the book to those waltzes of Strauss and Offenbach.

Polishing. Finally, the most enjoyable part of writing for me is rewriting. It feels like putting the final touches on a painting, adding highlights and correcting mistakes. I remember spending three hours changing the wording on just one paragraph. But what a paragraph it turned out to be!

Writer’s Block. For me, it doesn’t exist. If you have something to say, then write. If you don’t, go do something else. Come back when you do. Then you can write a heartbreakingly beautiful novel and experience the joy of those two little words . . .

The End.

© 2007 Debra Finerman

Debra Finerman attended Christie’s Graduate Program in Connoisseurship and the Art Market. Mademoiselle Victorine: A Novel (Published by Three Rivers Press. July 2007;$13.95US/$17.95CAN; 978-0-307-35283-5) is her first work of fiction after a career as a journalist in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. She worked for The Hollywood Reporter Magazine, Beverly Hills Today, Beverly Hills Magazine and Capital Style. She currently lives in New York and Connecticut.

For more information, please visit www.debrafinerman.com or www.mademoisellevictorine.com

by Michael LaRocca

One of the nice things about being an author is that we can break any rule we want. (I just did.) It’s part of our job description. Language changes through usage — definitions, spelling, grammar — and authors can help it do this. But on the other hand, we have to have some sort of agreement on the language or we won’t be able to talk to each other.

When we as authors break a rule or two, it’s not because we’re ignorant. It’s because we have reasons to break them. That’s one of the joys of writing.

Having said that, now I’m going to explain some rules. There are two types of writing in your novel. There is your narrative and there is your dialogue. The rules for the two are not the same.

For example, comma use. In dialogue, it’s not so difficult. Put in a comma wherever your speaker pauses in his/her speaking. In narrative, you have to consult the style guides and hope that you and your editor, working as a team, can sort it all out.

NARRATIVE

A cop thriller like my VIGILANTE JUSTICE has a simple set of rules for the narrative portion. Third-person, straightforward writing, light on adjectives and adverbs, easy to read and grammatically correct. Sentence fragments are acceptable if communication is achieved, and you’ll note that I use them often in this article. Why? Simply because it’s more effective that way.
(more…)

By Timothy Hallinan
Author of A Nail Through the Heart: A Novel

“Everything happens somewhere”
– Pieter Haag

Where does your book take place?

Of course, on one level, it takes place in the hearts, minds, and imaginations of your characters. On another level, it might take place in Omaha. Or Venus.

Nicolson Baker once set an entire novel (I think) on an office-building escalator. All the action in one of Don DeLillo’s novels takes place in the back seat of a limousine going cross-town in New York, a journey that (as I know from personal experience) can seem to take a lifetime. A writer like Robert Ludlum might take you to twenty locations in eighteen pages.

Setting is, of course, the physical universe in which your story is set. But I’d suggest that it’s much more than that. It’s a reflection of the characters. It acts on the characters. It provides an almost inexhaustible source of details that can help you tell your story more vividly or give you an entirely new set of ideas. In a sense, it’s a character in itself. And, generally speaking, books in which the setting is skillfully presented are better books because of it.

Some writers are indelibly associated with certain settings. Larry McMurtry’s west is an enormous and open land to which some characters bring small, closed minds. Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles is sunny and hospitable on the surface and corrupt underneath. These dark depths are the natural habitats of his characters.

You’ve probably read novels in which the settings are nothing but brand names: Riding uptown in the Lincoln town car, Dolores passed Tiffany and Prada and the magical toy emporium of FAO Schwartz. Modestly interesting, I suppose, but it would be a lot more interesting if it had something to do with Dolores.

Now suppose we read instead, Riding uptown in the Lincoln town car, Dolores allowed the smooth leather of the seat to calm her. She checked her fingernails as they passed the glittering art deco spire of the Chrysler building but sat forward as Tiffany, Prada, and FAO Schwartz slid by.

Okay, now we’ve done three things at once: we’ve seen a little of New York, we’ve learned a little about Dolores, and we still got all those brand names. In the first example, the setting was passive; it was just scenery. In the second, it was active; it wasn’t just New York, it was Dolores’s New York.

If you want to finish your book, you need to know your setting as well as you know your characters. Believe me, the setting can bail you out when you’re stuck. It can present a new course of action. It can give you the word picture you need for a fresh approach to open a scene or a chapter. It can capture the reader’s imagination.

So I’d suggest exploring your setting in the same way you explore your basic idea and your characters.

I would hope that your setting has the following characteristics.

• It’s a place that interests you. You’re going to be spending a lot of time there.
• It’s a place you know a good deal about, or can discover a good deal about.
• It’s a place that’s interesting to readers, or one that you can make interesting to readers.
• If it’s an imaginary setting — Venus, for example, or Tolkien’s Middle Earth, it’s a place you have done a lot of thinking about. You know its geography, its inhabitants, and its rules (moral and, if necessary, physical).

I love and am fascinated with both Los Angeles and Bangkok. I’ve spent substantial amount of time exploring them both. I could probably write a pretty bad city guide to both or either of them. That makes it fun for me to write about them, and there are times during the writing of any novel when having fun can be the only satisfaction available.

You may feel equally at home, creatively speaking, with Winesburg, Ohio, or 18th-century Paris, or a twentieth-century high-rise, or the inside of a maximum-security prison. Whatever your setting may be, I’d hope you’ll work to make it active rather than passive. It will be presented from your characters’ perspectives, whenever that’s appropriate. It will play a role in the story. It will affect your characters. In some ways it will reflect them.

It may help to think about the theater when considering setting. Theater directors take setting extremely seriously. It might be a bare stage that takes us directly into the minds of the characters or an extravaganza of elaborate sets that provides a social, intellectual, and emotional context for the story. What it never is, at least not in a good production, is a series of pretty pictures in front of which the actors pose and declaim.

You need to use your setting for all it’s worth. Otherwise, it’s dead weight.

© 2007 Timothy Hallinan

Timothy Hallinan is the author of A Nail Through the Heart: A Novel (Published by William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers; July 2007; $24.95US/$31.50CAN; ISBN: 978-0-06-125580-9). Hallinan divides his time between Los Angeles and Southeast Asia, primarily Thailand, where he has lived off and on for more than twenty years. As a principal in one of America’s top television consulting firms, he represented many Fortune 500 companies and pioneered new methods of making television programming accessible to teachers. He has also taught writing for many years. A Nail Through the Heart is his seventh novel.

For more information, please visit www.timothyhallinan.com

by Albyn Leah Hall
Author of The Rhythm of the Road: A Novel

Writing fiction is like allowing yourself to be the ugliest person in the room and the most beautiful person at the same time. The ‘beautiful’ you swans into the party, garnering admiration, presuming that everyone else will be interested in what you have to say — about anything. The ‘ugly’ you would prefer to cower in the kitchen, scoffing leftovers in the dark.

It’s a schizoid existence. The part of you that is dying to be heard is chronically at odds with the part of you that fears exposure, rejection, or being just plain bad, which brings me to my next point. In order to write a novel, you must be willing to be bad. This is especially true in the first draft; it is, arguably, what the first draft is for. (Or, in keeping with the analogy, in order to be beautiful, you must be ugly first.)

There is no easy way to do this. Every writer has his or her own way of wrestling with the demons, and I can’t tell you how to wrestle with yours. However, I can suggest some techniques which I use when starting a novel; simple strategies which help to free me from my inhibitions and create a space for the work to emerge.

1) When you begin a novel, rather than thinking you must write for, say, a minimum of four to six hours a day, try only to write for one hour maximum. This means you may write for no more than one hour! Most of us harbor an image of the tortured writer; the pacing, hair-pulling novelist locked up in a chicken shed while the world spins without him. And yet, while writing inevitably entails some pain and struggle, the stereotype of the suffering, workaholic writer is your enemy. The first draft is when you must pull something out of nothing: words from the ether, or from your unconscious. If you impose a tough regime upon it before it has had a chance to breathe, you will stifle it. If, rather, you write in bite-sized pieces, tantalizing yourself with just a little each day, then eventually you will want to write more, and take delicious pleasure in breaking your own rule. (However, while you don’t have to write much each day, it is important to write every day, including Sunday, even if that means just a quick scribble before brushing your teeth — you’ve still observed the rule.)

Lest you think this sounds frivolous — a hobbyist approach to writing — I must confess that there was a time when I thought the same thing. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t write for hours, or even, sometimes, minutes; why I spent most of my time staring at my computer screen longing to be anywhere but there. It was a severe blow to my sense of identity; I was a writer who could not write! When a friend suggested the hour max rule, I tried it with reluctance. A year later, I had written my first novel.

In later drafts, you will probably want to write for longer. This is great, so long as you bear in mind that good writing doesn’t always come from abundance. I can think of many days in which I have produced far more inspired writing after one hour than on other days when I wrote for six.

2) Write your first draft in longhand. This doesn’t mean you have to write the entire draft this way, but write each chapter or section by hand before transferring it to the computer. The computer tends to make us feel that we must be excellent immediately. We are daunted by the pristine white space before us, which we think we must fill with something polished and literary. Writing by hand, ideally in some tatty old notebook, gives you permission to be messy and primitive. (The notebook is also far more portable. If you’re sick of your four walls, shake up your routine; write in cafes, parks, trains. Occasionally, the noise of the natural world can help rather than hinder, a welcome relief from the more punitive voices of your own head.)

It isn’t until my second or maybe third draft that I do what I tastefully call “mining the vomit for gold,” transferring the work to computer, and in the process, honing the quality of the writing itself. But for now, it’s a mess, and if it isn’t, it should be. Scrawl and scribble; spew it out. This is as true for work that is autobiographical and work that isn’t remotely autobiographical; as true for comedy as an epic period novel. Like good dreams and bad dreams, it all comes from the same place. If you give yourself time to dwell there, “literature” will follow when it is good and ready.

3) Stay away from the phone, internet and emails until you have written for the day. In keeping with this, it is a good idea to write early, not only because you will be less distracted by the clutter of the day, but because you will be closer to your unconscious mind and dream state. Even if you only write for fifteen minutes, the quality of your attention will be much, much better if you have not yet filled your head with other people and the many things you have to do. Even something as prosaic as shopping for lunch or having the car fixed can throw you off completely. You’ll be amazed by how difficult it feels at first, removed from your social ‘fixes.’ This is a sobering reminder of just how addicted we are to these things, and how often we use them to procrastinate! (Yet it is also a liberating, if humbling, experience to realize that our friends, colleagues, and household chores can usually hang on without us for a little longer.)

4) When you start a novel, do not worry about having a great story. The search for the ‘great story’ is, in my view, overrated. I speak only partly in jest when I say that there are roughly half a dozen stories in the world and most books are variations upon them. The story is only as interesting as the person who is telling it. If you have a strong voice, the reader will follow it through anything. You can write a wonderful book which, on the surface, simply describes a party (think of Mrs. Dalloway, or The Dead) or a dreadful book about a prison break or espionage. When people ask how I worked out the story for my latest novel, The Rhythm of the Road, I reply that I didn’t, to start with. I found Josephine, my young heroine, and she told me the story. How did I find Josephine? One night, I was watching a documentary about a middle-aged housewife who stalks a young priest, convinced that he shares her obsession. I wondered what it would take for a person to become so delusional that she is driven to behave this way. Josephine, a teenage truck driver’s daughter, has little in common with this woman, but the first glimmer was ignited on that evening, by my own curiosity. Like giving birth, I conceived her, but she seemed to develop in her own right. She did so partly through my research, (I’m a great believer in research, which will also help to develop the story), but also from a place within myself, a place that could empathize with a young girl so lonely that she must conjure a fantasy relationship to fill the void. In the end, it seemed to be she who was introducing me to her lonely Irish father, to the hitchhiker who becomes the object of her attention, and so on. When I could finally see how the book was unraveling, I did sit down and work out an outline for the entire story. But I could not do this until I had Josephine’s voice. So remember that a story can begin in all sorts of ways, no matter how prosaic: with a question, with the way a piece of music makes you feel, with a joke, a dream, a memory, a three minute conversation you overhear in a bus. You can find an entire universe in a single moment.

Of course, I am only one writer and this is only one set of tools. Yet whether they work for you, I believe that the underlying philosophy applies to all writers of fiction; to write anything good, you must first be willing to take the ugly, messy, chaotic self out into the light, take it for a run, let it tell you where to go. One of the greatest compliments ever paid to me as a writer was “you must feel pretty good about yourself to let yourself feel this bad.” And yet, the funny thing is that once I do allow myself to feel ‘this bad,’ it doesn’t feel too bad at all. At the very least, I’ve gotten a novel or two out of it.

Copyright © 2006 Albyn Leah Hall

Author
Albyn Leah Hall is the author of two novels: The Rhythm of the Road (published by St. Martin’s Press, January 2007; $24.95US/$31.00CAN; 0-312-35944-6) and Deliria, (published by Serpent’s Tail, 1994.) She is also a screenwriter; her screenplay, The Rose of Tralee, is currently in development. Albyn’s childhood was divided between New York and Los Angeles, but she has spent most of her adult life in London, where she works as both a writer and a psychotherapist.

For more information, please visit www.albynleahhall.co.uk