Category Archives: Writing In the Margins

Writing in the Margins is where the story slips off the page and wanders into the back room, timelines bend, space shifts. Authors and characters might share coffee, swap gossip and argue about how the book is going. The rules of the novel don’t apply, time folds, people know they are characters in a book, and anyone can wander in at any time.… Continue reading →

The back room smells like paper and coffee. Drafts are piled in uneven towers. A laptop glows on the cluttered table like a spaceship in the middle of a used bookstore.

Doris’s finger hovers over the Publish button.

Grace leans against the filing cabinet, casual as ever, like she’s been waiting for this exact moment. “You’re overthinking again.”… Continue reading →

Doris turns to the young girl.“I don’t know you, do I?”

Before the girl can answer, a sharp cry echoes across the room.

Doris spins toward the sound. “A baby?”

Everyone starts talking at once.

The girl answers. “I’m Calliope. I was born with her.” (She points toward the crying.)

“Wait—you haven’t written even the first scene?… Continue reading →

Doris stops. She doesn’t remember this door, or this sign.  She reads it again, out loud.

Early Landfill 
Room 428
NE Memory Lane

 What?

Something flickers in the back corner of her mind.  She shrugs it off and yanks back too hard on the knob, expecting resistance. The door swings open easily as she stumbles forward into a puff of dust and catches herself just inside.… Continue reading →