Jill Malone

Hello gin and tonic

Editors.  I love a good editor.  They see story and character, structure and theme like pieces on a chess board.  Yeah, the knight is stuck behind the castle, and you need to move him over here to support the queen.  And just like that, something clarifies in your mind.  Some niggling doubt, always there, has been …

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Women’s Week in Provincetown – I’ll be participating in the following events

Wednesday, October 15th 1:00 p.m.  Group reading in the Madeira Room at the Vixen with a book signing afterwards at Now Voyager. Thursday, October 16th  2:00 p.m.  Bywater Group Book signing at Womencrafts with Cynn Chadwick, Jill Malone, Marianne K. Martin, Val McDermid and Mari SanGiovanni 4:00 p.m.  Bywater Group Book signing at Now Voyager with Cynn …

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The Thin Veil of I

First person is a tricky thing sometimes. It makes the story more immediate and direct, more story-like. But, depending on the character, the reader may begin to see the narrator and the writer as the same creature. Confessional poetry lends itself to this blur. Sylvia Plath is the classic confessional writer. Her own experience, her …

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Plotting

I’m contemplating a murder. I can see it: the body, and two teenagers. And part of me is concerned that as a writer, I’m becoming ghoulish, and part of me is intrigued by this notion. In Alice Munro’s short stories, the characters are frequently informed by violence, but the violence is usually outside the scope …

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Conviction

Joss Whedon (I’m a major fan of this brilliant guy — creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc.) said that conviction is what makes evil different. Conviction is why fringe groups are so dangerous: they cannot see the other side. This is interesting to me because I’ve been thinking, lately, about obsession. I struggle with …

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Book Vote

Take a moment to vote for the best lesbian book of the 20th Century at http://www.bywaterbooks.com/xcart/pages.php?pageid=9

Women's Week in PTown

Oh, this is mad exciting.  Bywater Books has organized a number of stellar events in Provincetown, Massachusetts during Women’s Week.  I’ll be there from Tuesday, October 14th until Saturday, October 18th.   On Wednesday, October 15th, I’ll be reading at the Vixen with several other authors from 1-3 p.m. Signings afterward at Now Voyager. Thurday, …

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On Attachment

I used to burn everything. Photographs, letters, any memento from a relationship, once that relationship was over. I had to use lighter fluid a couple of times because the clothes wouldn’t catch fire. For a while, after graduate school, people had a reprieve. They wrote so beautifully that I couldn’t bring myself to burn their …

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Portland

Next Saturday, the 23rd, I’m reading at In Other Words Bookstore in Portland. Portland is the place I live in my alternate version of my life. After grad school, I had plans to move there, but something always happened that made me extend those plans—-push them just beyond reach. Seven and a half years ago, …

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