cover The Kiss that Counted, Goldie winner medla, Lambda winner medal, by Karin Kallmaker "Full of suspense and mystery, deeply moving characters and storytelling." Lambda Literary Review

Sleepless in the City that Never Sleeps

Karin Kallmaker Awards and Reviews, Kiss That Counted, Sisters of the Pen

The sky is slowly lightening outside my hotel room window. It’ll be a while before it can compete with the marquees on Times Square, which run all night and day with blazing neon and massive LED displays. One of the marquees is the iconic Coca-Cola sign. A while ago I noticed it wasn’t red and white, and wondered if gray and white were colors for the Witching Hour. Then I saw that “inside” the sign were animated workers doing amusing clean-up tasks. I wondered how many people were awake to see the fun. Read More

Fun with First Lines

Karin Kallmaker Craft of Writing, Sisters of the Pen

One of the fun sessions at the GALLA Festival was Heidi Boehringer‘s Writing Tales from the Edge. The session was designed to get writers focused on the act of writing… just keeping the pen moving without censoring. One exercise was finishing a short scene based on the opening line from a famous novel. With apologies to Edmund White for butchering his opening to Hotel de Dream, I had a great deal of fun with the inspiration of

Cora never thought for a moment her young husband could die.

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wood desk with typewriter vinyl record scrabble tiles paint and music

Why the Y? Or, Good in Spite of the Bad and Ugly

Karin Kallmaker Events and Appearances, LIFE + STYLE, Readers and Libraries, Sisters of the Pen

ON THE PAGE

Life has been so busy these last few weeks that I haven’t been sure what to blog about. Should I stay with the strictly personal, discuss the flu that’s run through our household that I may yet still not entirely escape? There’s wrestling meets twice a week and tournaments on Saturdays, and the general joys of raising children. The past tense in the statement, “My partner used to work for a really big bank” and the adjustment to her being home every day and the basic reality of dealing with this economy and the trials it is placing on all the people we know. Read More

It’s a Living Thing

Karin Kallmaker Craft of Writing, Dawning

book cover dawning science fiction

A tragedy occurred recently when two librarians headed home from a conference were killed by a drunk driver whose truck struck their cab. The cab driver survived, and so did the drunk driver, who had already been in court several times, and had a bizarre record of crimes. The drunk was an agent of chaos, the kind of remorseful-until-the-next-drink train wreck that strains the justice system and our mercy. Read More