It is easy to get stuck inside our own reading bubbles, so I was excited to find this map of literature around the world. For the zoomable version of the map, click here.

The map was created by redditor Backforward24 and use book covers to highlight a single book from every country. Though some of the titles make sense – To Kill a Mockingbird is a pretty good one for the USA – others fit less well. I don’t know that I would have chosen The Dream of the Red Chamber to represent China for example.

Still, a map like this is a great way to begin reading literature from parts of the world that you know less well. I’m mentally adding books from South America and Africa to my reading list as we speak.

If you have other reading suggestions from around the world or if you think…

On her knees she is groomed to stay..

On her knees; her only measure of obedience is found..

On her knees, she must serve them..

On her knees; her place during supper..

On her knees, she must greet them..

On her knees, she is expected to beg for oil..

On her knees, she begs for his mercy..

On her knees, she prays for her land to heal..

On her knees, she bears one child after another..

On her knees, she prays for her dying child..

On her knees, she prays to not be on her knees anymore!

BySusanMcMillan

For that woman!

Any successful author will tell you, you need an email list.

This is the best selling tool you can get. A list of people who are already interested in your work. So that’s what I tried to build. Following the advice of many, I have done everything I can to build up a list of people who might be interested in my next book.

I had a modest list of 174. Not much by any means but I was proud of it. However, I had never utilized this list before yesterday.

Not wanting to bombard people’s inbox. (I hate when people do that.) I let it sit there, just waiting for the right moment to contact everyone.

Yesterday was that day!

Eager to inform people about my upcoming release, I carefully drafted my first email to my mailing list and after ten minutes of whittling and worrying, I actually pressed…

Source: Write at Home

Write with nouns and verbs.

No disrespect intended toward the other six parts of speech, but nouns and verbs are the meat and bones of writing.

Everything else is garnish.

Get your nouns right.

Make them concrete and specific.

Use cardigan instead of sweater and linebacker instead of football player.

Don’t philosophize about suffering when you could introduce your reader to a Marine widow and her fatherless infant.

And make your verbs lively.

Don’t walk if you can meander or strut.

Don’t just hit if you can slap, thump or pummel.

Writers should value every word, but wise writers give special attention to nouns and verbs.

S. Jackson Author Interview

In The Big Cheese Festival, we meet Stubby Mouse who is being bullied by because his tail is short. Why was bullying an issue you wanted to tackle in this kids book?

I see bullying all the time and it just makes no sense to bully another child, or adult for that matter. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed in childhood. Cyber bullies come into play and one reads about another child taking their own life due to being bullied. If I can help children be a little kinder to one another then this book was worth writing. Kindness breeds kindness. Bullying must stop. Children need to take a stand against bullying and their families must do the same, as do the educators in our system. It is bad when ones parent actually cyber bullies another child and that child ends…

When I say that they murdered Jane Austen, I’m not speaking metaphorically. Some person in the distant past didn’t simply eviscerate her work. No, I mean that a few scholars believe that someone poisoned Jane Austen. With arsenic.

According to research from the British Library, Jane Austen’s death at the age of 41, her early cataracts, and her strange facial pigmentation are all consistent with the effects of arsenic poisoning.

Some scholars say this sounds like murder. Others remind us that arsenic was often used in medicine; even Austen’s death resulted from the chemical, there may not have been anything nefarious about it. And still other scholars grumble that these claims are nothing more than academic click bait.

Whatever the truth is, the subject is a fascinating one. I suggest you read all of the British Library’s blog post on the subject before coming to your own conclusions. We always…