Tag Archive for ‘Christina Baker Kline blog’
Moving Day
Welcome to the new home for my blog, next door to my website. After today, I won’t post to my old ‘wordpress.com’ site anymore. I know this site looks a little different. I’d love to hear what you think. I have an exciting line-up of guest writers in the next month, including literary agent Molly Lyons on how to have the best relationship possible with your agent, Martin Kihn on writing “yet another non-fiction book proposal for a memoir about (yawn) a [...]
Looking Back — and Stepping Forward
When I began this blog, ten months ago, I had recently finished a novel that was several months from publication, Bird in Hand, and was beginning a new one (working title Orphan Train). I envisioned this site as a place to talk about the writing life and the process of writing my new novel-in-progress. I thought it might be a useful tool for the graduate students I teach and advise at Fordham, students embarking on creative-writing M.A. theses (mostly novels-in-progress) — [...]
What If: The Fear that Inspired My Novel, Bird in Hand
Writing and blogging and talking in interviews about my new novel this week, I keep encountering the same question: What inspired it? There are many answers to this, of course, and I’ve talked in different places about various sources for the story. But the deepest reasons are hard to articulate. So I decided to write about them here. At first it looked like every mother’s worst nightmare: Several weeks ago a 36-year-old mother of two, driving her own kids and [...]
Quick Link: My Q&A with Novelist Lori A. May
The poet and novelist Lori A. May interviewed me for her blog — Musings, Reviews, News — this week. In the interview Lori pushed me to reveal what Bird in Hand is really about, why I’m not a hermit, why I think achieving balance is an impossible goal, and the fluky way I got started as a writer. You can read all about it here.
Publication Day for Bird in Hand
Publication Day, I’ve learned over the years, is an elusive concept. You imagine that something momentous will happen — after all, the date has been printed in catalogs and announced on amazon.com; it seems significant. You think of other important events in your life: college graduation, your wedding day, the birth of your first child. Things actually happened on those days. You were awarded an official degree in front of several thousand people, you suddenly found yourself yoked for life [...]
Bird Days of August
August 11th is the official release date of my new novel, Bird in Hand. Over the several weeks I’ll be telling the inside story of how and when and why I wrote this book, and how it ended up getting published. I’ll also post links to other blogs and websites with my guest posts and interviews. I hope that learning about my process will inspire you with your own work!
Exclusive Sneak Peek* of My New Novel, Bird in Hand (Part 2)
In anticipation of the release in exactly a week of Bird in Hand, I am posting the prologue. Yesterday was Part 1; this is Part 2. Sorry, you have to go back, but I’ll make it easy for you. (*My publicist made me say that. He also made me promise to point out that if this excerpt intrigues you, the book is available for pre-order at indie.org and amazon.com.) Bird in Hand (Prologue, Part 2) “Do we need a lawyer?” [...]
Exclusive Sneak Peek* at My New Novel, Bird in Hand
Over the next two days, in anticipation of the release in exactly a week of Bird in Hand, I am posting the prologue in two parts. (*My publicist made me say that. He also made me promise to point out that if this excerpt intrigues you, the book is available for pre-order at indie.org and amazon.com.) Bird in Hand For Alison, these things will always be connected: the moment that cleaved her life into two sections and the dawning realization [...]
A Not-Writing Lesson
Thursday, 11:15 a.m. The phone rings. I look up from my writing and squint at Caller ID: PUBLIC SCHOOLS. And just like that, my work day is over. In the office of the school nurse at Hillside Elementary School, Eli sits slumped in a chair, his face pale, pupils dilated. His forehead is hot. “He’s 102. This fever is going around,” the nurse says. “Could be a virus. Or …” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but we both know what [...]
If You Don't Put it In …
I’m curious about how literary writers whose work is also commercial balance two often conflicting objectives: telling a good story and exploring setting, theme, and character. One day this week I was privileged to spend time with two terrific novelists, Alison Larkin and Marina Budhos, who had very different and equally useful takes on this question. Alison told me that she reads the thriller writer Harlan Coben for plot. Coben is a master of building and maintaining suspense, she said; [...]
