Ken Tangvik is our Choices guest today. I "met" him virtually through the publisher we have in common, Aberdeen Bay, and read and loved his book, Don't Mess with Tanya: Stores Emerging from the Boston Barrios. Here is my short review: The Boston stories in Don’t Mess with Tanya, by Ken Tangvik, are beautifully and expertly portrayed. I liked every one – especially the story about Tanya, the young black woman, who gets back at a store keeper for treating her with distrust as she looks around his store. I also liked Matt’s story as he waits in a hair salon for his haircut. The women talking in the waiting area give him quite a lesson in how they live their lives. These stories show the cultural and race diversity of the Boston community by portraying immigration difficulties and the violence the people have to contend with. However, it is not all dark. Love is portrayed as well. So I'm very pleased to introduce you to Ken Tangvik and his wise words about reading and writing. The … [Read more...]
How reading inspires writing
The blog-a-day-challenge is over
Today is the last day of my self-inflicted July blog-a-day challenge. You can probably hear me breathing a sigh of relief as I look out my office window. Though I'm glad I achieved my goal - there were many times in the month when I was tempted to call it off - I'm happy to tell you that I'm not ever going to do that to myself again. Here's why: Thinking up a blog subject thirty-one days in a row is hard. As a result I know my posts were repetitive and sometimes uninteresting. I should have asked more writing friends to make guest appearances to help mix it up a bit. It was time-consuming. It took me more time to decide on a post subject than it took to write about the subject. It put unneeded pressure on me. What did I need that for? Well, I decided on this scheme while I was waiting for comments on my novel from my group of beta readers. I felt I needed another activity to keep me busy. I was definitely wrong about that. I also pressured myself not … [Read more...]
