by Jen Lue
“I’m interested in the idea of who gets to be well and whose way of existing and perceiving gets to be labeled as ‘well’ . . . As a woman of color you grow up experiencing things at the same that you’re being told, ‘This isn’t happening to you.'”
by Jill Kargman
We become balsamic reductions as we age—our very best parts distilled and clarified. Which is why they make needlepoint pillows that say aging is great like wine or cheese—and not like bananas, but that’s besides the point.
by Joan Schweighardt
“It hurt a lot to give up the musical career dream, but I never felt I would give up music itself. That would be impossible for me.”
by Lisa Peet
“It is also a process where you learn something about yourself and make sense of the current events manifesting around you as part of a larger cycle of life. I also believe it makes a more engaging read…if there is a personal voice as well.”
by Peter Krass
One of my writing students, well into her 80s, was surprised that her stories, set in the bohemian Greenwich Village of the 1950s, held our workshop fascinated. “You’d really want to read more of this?” she asked skeptically. We did.
by Joan Schweighardt
“There is always hope. As long as we are breathing, we have hope.”
by Maddie King
There’s something exciting and liberating about the middle-aged debut. It’s a bit monstrous, actually . . . a Bloom writer, as a person who’s both “new” and “late,” is a bit grotesque. But that’s exactly where ideas spring free.
by Pamela Holmes
I would develop a psychological picture of a woman who could be this brave and determined. I would create a portrait of a marriage that would sustain and support her obsession. I would answer the question for myself. Continue reading
by Mollie Weisenfeld
In this edition of FIVE IN BLOOM, we reintroduce you to some of our earliest spotlighted authors, whose works continue to inspire. Continue reading
by Jenn Stroud Rossmann
Even Proust didn’t sequester himself in his cork-lined room to write until he had, well, lost time to the parties and travels he turned into fiction. Continue reading
by Cynthia Miller Coffel
The more frequently-told story suggests that either Taylor or her publishers, in that decade of conformity after the Second World War and before the feminism of the 1960s, did not want to represent the author as a person with literary ambitions. Continue reading
by Maddie King
“Everything I write is colored by the desire to see beyond appearances, by my awareness of multiple viewpoints, multiple margins and centers operating at once.” Continue reading
by Ariadne Apostolou
“I am a writer who gets really passionate about certain subject matter, and then dives in and learns everything she can.” Continue reading
by Caroline Bock
Some days, [it] burns into a complete story, and my writing goal is achieved. Some days, the story stretches into much longer pieces. Word count becomes irrelevant. I am unbound by time, hungry and not realizing why. Continue reading
