Olive Branches Don’t Grow on Trees: The First of the Greco Family Books

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Drawing on her own background, Grace Mattioli has created a warring but loveable Italian-American family, who just can’t seem to get along. While they all have their individual problems, youngest daughter, Silvia Greco, hopes that she can bring

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Tips for Writing Fiction: Characters in Motion

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Silvia moves through the world like a Peanut’s character dancing.  Frank moves from one side of the kitchen to the other like he is keeping beat to a Polka song.  Cosmo moves with a bounce in his step, his head bopping back and forth like a

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Fiction Books about Happiness: Write about Peace, not War

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We are and have been in the midst of war for the past several years, and it appears as though there is no end in sight to the current war in Afghanistan.  Both wars that we have been involved in in recent years were completely unnecessary

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Tips for Writing Fiction: Making People Out of Words

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Although I knew the general plot through my outline, around midway through the writing of my book, my characters started doing things that I had not planned for them. They surprised me by certain decisions and or actions.  This was when I knew

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Tips for Writing Fiction: The Use of Humor in Serious Fiction

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All of my favorite writers have one thing in common: Their use of humor.  Flannery O’Connor’s use of black humor adds greatly to adds to the characterization and the setting in her stories. Another one of my writers is Nathanael West

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