• blogging,  book launch,  books,  wisconsin,  writing

    I’m Baaaa-aaack, for a Blog Tour

    I can’t believe I haven’t blogged here in almost a year. It’s been a helluva year. Someday I’ll tell you about it or, more likely, I’ll write about it. But let’s just say that LIFE, with its highs and lows, has had me riding a pretty wild roller coaster since I last updated this blog. But I’m back this week to participate in the blog tour for the release of the LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER anthology, curated by my friend and fellow writing group member, Ann Imig! Stay tuned for more information later this week on the force that is Ann, the nationwide Listen to Your Mother show, and the…

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  • authors,  blogging,  books,  writing

    Una LaMarche on her Writing Process

    I’ve been asked to participate in the #MyWritingProcess Blog Tour, where writers from across genres and continents talk about how they write. Today I’m featuring the hilarious Una LaMarche, whose Sassy Curmudgeon blog was named one of Babble’s 100 best humor blogs of 2013. She also writes for the New York Observer. Last year, I read Una’s debut YA novel, Five Summers, and had a blast re-living my teenage summer camp days through the four main characters. Una has a new novel, Like No Other, coming out in July. It’s about forbidden young love–always a great premise–between a Brooklyn girl with a strict Hasidic upbringing and an awkward bookish boy.  Today I’m posting…

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  • agents,  blogging,  publishing,  writing

    Literary Matchmaking

    A lot of writers have compared the process of finding a literary agent to online dating. Sending out a query letter about your novel is like creating that perfect online profile–with just enough information to pique people’s interest and leave them wanting to find out more, but not so much information that you come across as desperate, egotistical, or just plain crazy. All the while, you’re waiting for someone to fall in love… with your writing. One blog, Cupid’s Literary Connection, takes the dating/querying analogy literally. Cupid, the mythical creature behind the blog, is an anonymous, agented author who has dedicated her entire web space to contests, agent and publisher…

  • beer,  blogging,  booze,  food,  local,  microbrews

    Craft Beer Week: Drink it in

    It’s craft beer week here in Madison, which means that there are tastings, dinners, and “meet the brewmaster” events all over town. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really, and I’d need a whole team of bloggers–and a string of babysitters–to be able to do justice to even a fraction of the flavors on tap throughout the week. Despite having neither, I’ve managed to sample a few things, and I’m noticing a theme emerge– I’ve been enjoying some things that I normally wouldn’t order. I tend to be an ale kind of girl, particularly IPAs. So it’s been good to sample some things out of my comfort zone. The best of…

  • blogging,  coffee,  creativity,  writing

    Why We Write

      Ask any writer why he or she writes and you are likely to get the answer, “Because I have to.”  You’d probably get this answer from a bestselling author who’s on deadline to deliver her next manuscript. And you’d probably get the same answer from an unpublished teenager who taps away at a computer in her parents’ basement. One makes money from writing, the other doesn’t. At least not yet. So money doesn’t explain the need they both feel to write.  I recently read an article by Ann Lamott that, for me, explains this need. She says, There is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can…

  • art,  blogging,  books,  holiday,  seasonal,  writing

    Blogs to Books

    Yep, I’m that person. The person who buys books for everyone on her holiday list. What to get Dad who returns nearly everything I buy him? Books. What to get my nephew whose Japanamation jargon resembles a foreign language? Books. And what to get my niece who, like me when I was a kid, aspires to be a writer? Why, blank books, of course. One of my favorite blogs, Style Maniac, recently teamed up with independent bookseller Books & Books of Westhampton Beach, NY, to launch a month-long celebration of the art of giving and receiving books. The Blogs to Books challenge invited readers to choose one book and one recipient…

  • blogging,  budget-friendly,  cheese,  fashion,  green living,  local,  style

    Trendy and Transient

    By Guest Blogger Dorothy Munholland College students spend a lot of time in transition. Between various moves from apartment to apartment or from school to my hometown during the summer, not to mention going abroad, I’ll have averaged 1.75 moves a year during my 4-year college career. This has made accumulating and storing anything other than wardrobe essentials fairly impossible. I love everything Jeffery Campbell, but it just doesn’t make sense to take up my already limited space with a massive pair of shoes I will never be wearing to class. I’m also not sure how my dad would feel about helping me lift boxes filled with wooden platforms every…

  • blogging,  fashion,  reviews,  style

    Fashion Week Favorites

    My hometown of Madison, Wisconsin is known for a lot of things. Political activity, especially during the past couple of weeks. A thriving bike culture. Great microbrews. Fashion is not one of the things we are  known for. Sure, we’re got some fantastic thrift stores, and major retailer shopbop.com has its headquarters in Madison. But unless you’re shopping for a pair of Keen sandals or a new Patagonia jacket, it can be hard to find the latest styles. So I look to the the internet for inspiration. While luckily celebrities, stylists, and bloggers crowded into the tents at Fashion Week in New York last week (yep, I’m talking about you,…

  • blogging,  coffee,  fiction,  style

    Seven Secrets

    Glossing Over It is thrilled to accept the Stylish Blogger Award. Thank you to The Chick Lit Bee for the nomination. I am an unabashed lover of chick lit, as well as many other kinds of fiction, so I enjoy the honest and thoughtful reviews over at The Chick Lit Bee, run by four fabulous writers. Along with the award comes the request to pay the compliment forward as follows:  {1} Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award. {2} Reveal seven things about yourself. {3} Nominate ten great bloggers for the award. So here are seven things about me: (1) I tried on a jumpsuit last…

  • blogging,  cheese,  farms,  food,  local,  restaurants

    A New Project… and an Announcement

    I’m back over at Wisconsin Public Television’s website, blogging about sustainable and local food for the next 5 weeks. My posts will go up every Tuesday. Come on over and check out this week’s post about How to Eat Locally Without Lifting a Finger. I love to cook, and when I agreed to do a food-specific blogging series for WPT, I had grand visions of trolling the aisles of natural foods co-ops and the winter farmers’ markets to come up with new ways to eat squash and kale. And then came a little “bump” in the road. Literally. I’m 15 weeks pregnant and, though very excited, I’m finding it hard…