Book News from Nancy

As we head into the holiday season, I think that some of the more. . .mature. . . of my readers might enjoy taking a…

Multi-talented Sara Prentice Manela made this wonderful map for me years ago, to show where special places in my book are on Nantucket.  So many…

It’s true, what Mitchell’s window says. Life is a wonderful fairy tale. Not all the time, maybe, but sometimes, and so many times on Nantucket….

The Island House is about two young women with secrets that will change their lives during one summer on Nantucket. Some of it was inspired…

What inspires my writing? Sometimes, my memory–and my diary, which I kept from the time I was 17. I dated this slightly older, very handsome,…

I had a really good idea for a novel. What if a lovely divorced woman with a little girl marries a lovely divorced man with…

  In Between Husbands and Friends, I explored the secrets we tell our husbands, our friends, and ourselves. Nantucket summers, so sensual, sunny, and carefree,…

I think it takes a while for anyone who moves to a strange new town to feel as if they belong. For me, my moment…

“Could she just accept her child? Or should she, must she, remain on guard, forever nudging and nagging her daughter toward safety?”   page 336, Family…

(The ereader cover)            In this novel,  Daphne Miller is trying to rebuild her life after she was divorced from her husband when she discovered…

  A writer, Fanny Anderson, says those words on page 252 of my novel Morning. At the beginning of the book, a free-lance editor, Sara…

Sometimes the separation between fiction and autobiography is as thin as gossamer. In 1983, after I met Charley Walters, I rented a house for a…

In 1978, Tillie Olsen published a non-fiction book called Silences, where she shares a survey proving that then—in 1978—one of every 12 published writers were…

I’ve always said that I wanted to write books about real women’s lives. I’ve wanted to include the dirty dishes and the endless day when…

By the time my first novel, Stepping, was published, I had already written most of my second novel. As I wrote Three Women at the…

It was a glorious occasion when my first novel, Stepping, was published by Doubleday in January, 1980!  If you want an idea of just how…

YOUR LIFE IS NOT A NOVEL OR MAYBE IT IS! I’ve always wanted to write about the lives of “ordinary” women, and I have done…

WHAT INSPIRES MY BOOKS? A Nantucket Christmas was inspired by dogs. Here’s Kiska, with her personal shopper and fashion designer Tina.  They were at the…

AN ISLAND CHRISTMAS I hope you all had a delicious Thanksgiving!  I did, but I’m happy to be back at my computer.  I’ve been talking…