Kelly Dwyer

I'm delighted to share the news that my novel GHOST MOTHER will be published by Union Square & Co., the imprint of Barnes and Noble, in 2024.

"Author of THE TRACKS OF ANGELS and SELF-PORTRAIT WITH GHOSTS, Kelly Dwyer's GHOST MOTHER, part psychological ghost story, part murder mystery, part character study, in which a young woman falls in love with a decrepit mansion, only to discover that her dreams house was the site of a gruesome triple murder/suicide in the 1950s, and she begins to experience strange occurrences that lead her to believe the house is haunted; but are her experiences of the ghost real, or is this a cascading mental breakdown? To Claire Wachtel at Union Square 7 Co. by Henry Dunow and Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner."

I've been working on this book for many years, so if you're a writer, the moral is, keep writing! And if you're a reader, I hope to connect with you again next year and you'll let me know what you think...

In the meantime, I'm wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!

(photo of lights and moon in San Pedro, CA, my hometown)

BOOK LOVERS by Emily Henry was one of the many GoodReads Choice Award winners (and nominees) that I read and enjoyed this year. It's about books, book lovers, and love, and it's also laugh-out-loud funny...

What are some of the favorite books you read this year? Please share in the comments, so I can add to my (ever-growing) reading list (and buy a few holiday gifts for myself), :) and feel free to connect with me on Goodreads!

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/823802.Kelly_Dwyer

(from @TheGoodwillLibrarian)

When the leaves turn gold and red, the air feels crisp and smells like wet leaves, the temperature drops to the 50s, and pumpkins and mums appear on porches, my thoughts turn to scary books and films.

I love watching my favorite creepy movies, and I love re-reading and discovering new shiver-inducing books. A few recent discoveries these past few weeks have been Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak, about a young nanny, recently sober, who comes to live with a family with a five year-old child. When he starts drawing dark, disturbing pictures, the nanny, unsure of what she's seeing, begins to investigate an old murder. Fervor by Alma Hatsu combines Japanese monster stories with the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II, as well as a Zombie-like illness. Ray Russell's Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Stories contain some gothic stories that seem as though they could have been written during any time period, even though these were mostly written in the '70s. My favorite is the tale of how a man came to acquire a permanent disturbing grin on his face.

I'm a fast reader, and these were page-turners. If there's a ghost haunting me, standing behind me, reading slowly, I'm afraid I disappointed them, for I was turning these pages as fast as I could to make sure the characters got out alive....

What about you? Read any good (scary) books lately? What are you looking forward to reading this fall?

Photo by Patrick Tomasso from Unsplash

The Iowa Summer Writing Festival Students and yours truly at our "Killer Openings" class, July 2022

"Happy Families are all alike; unhappy families are unhappy in their own way."--Tolstoy

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in posession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

--Jane Austen

"I am an invisible man." --Ralph Ellison

In this weekend workshop over Zoom, these ten writers and I discussed what makes a Killer Opening Line, a Killer Opening Paragraph and first page(s), a Killer Inciting Incident, and a Killer First Act. Our purpose was twofold: we studied the subject and workshopped opening scenes in order to write Killer Openings that editors, agents, and readers would not be able to put down; and in order to have a roadmap for ourselves so that we would be able to finish our novels, stories and memoirs.

Some writers came to the class with a project in mind, and some came without any idea about what they were going to write about. Some came with a novel completely finishshed, and these writers were interested in learning how to make their openings more compelling as they revised.

It was a fantastic class and weekend, due in part to the fascinating topic, and due in large part to the fantastic group of writers who participated.

I'll be teaching the class again in the fall, and I'd love to have you in it.

To sign up for the Festival's email list, just write to: iswfestival@uiowa,edu

To check out current listings, go to: The University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival Current Course Catalog

Hope to see you in a future class, so we can write some KILLER OPENINGS together!

Photo by Benjamin Balázs from Unsplash

I don't know anyone who thinks of Roman Polanski, who was convicted of rape of a minor, as a feminist. I haven't read Ira Levin's novel, so perhaps we can thank the original source material and its author for the film's perspective. Or maybe people are complicated, and some men's artistic geniuses are greater (yeah, much greater) than their moral codes. I only know that when I watched Polanski's film Rosemary Baby recently (for only the second time in my life, the first time having been as a college student), I came away with the following revelations: This is a masterpiece; this is a feminist-friendly masterpiece; and this is one of my favorite films of all time.

As I'm working on finishing my own psychological ghost story novel, it was a true inspiration to me.

(Spoiler alert) A plot summary is as follows: Rosemary (like the virgin Mary + an herb; herbs figure prominently in the film) and Guy (just a guy, right?) Woodhouse (played by the luminescent twenty-three year-old Mia Farrow and the kind of funny thirty-nine year-old John Cassavetes) respectively move into a gothic New York City apartment building and make friends with two elderly neighbors who seem warm, friendly, nosy, and fishy. Soon enough, our suspicions are confirmed: thanks to these neighbors, Guy has sold his soul to Satan to become a successful actor. Only, he hasn't sold his soul, he's sold his wife's body. Yep, the neighbors and Guy drug Rosemary so that Beelzebub can rape her and inseminate her with his child. And when Rosemary wakes up to find scratches all over her body from the Dark Lord's claws? Guy tells her he needs to trim his nails! Rosemary says, shocked, "When I was asleep?!" It's a horrifying moment, as the audience realizes Guy is basically saying, Don't worry, honey, the Devil didn't rape you, I did!

As the pregnancy continues, Rosemary becomes less and less in control of her own body, and more and more at the mercy of men: her husband, the Satanic doctor that her neighbors and Guy force her to see, and of course, the half-human, half-Luciferean baby boy growing inside her, who is causing her terrible pain. When she reaches out to another (normal) male doctor for help, he of course thinks she's crazy.

Rosemary played by Mia Farrow is smart. We're never shouting at her to "Get out!" or "Run!" She does the only things she can do. We watch, knowing more than she does, but also knowing she can't do anything else.

I won't spoil the ending. It shows that even in this male-dominated world in which a woman is objectified and used as no more than a vessel for Satan's baby, there is one thing that only a woman can do: be a mama. How this idea is resolved is brilliant.

This is a horror movie in which much of the horror is inside the audience's mind. We have one scene in which we are shown glimpses of the Devil: claws. Eyes. The baby is described but never seen. The scariest monsters are the ones underneath the bed, inside the closet, inside our dreams, and of course, in our society and beside us in bed. It is a great irony that Polanski seemed to understand this better than just about anyone.

movie poster and still from Rosemary's Baby directed and written by Roman Polanski, produced by William Castle and executive produced by Robert Evans for Paramount Pictures, based on the novel by Ira Levin. 1968.

Me in California, Summer, 2021.

Part of my "vision" for this year is to spend more time there. I grew up in San Pedro, and being in the sun in my home state is one of my happy places!

Do you set New Year's resolutions? Intentions? Choose a word of the year? For the last few years, I've done the latter. I try to let my word guide the year, more or less, and it's worked to varying success. This year, I was oscillating between the words "play" and "gratitude," and then, during a Zoom New Year's event focused on choosing our word of the year, hosted by Nina Collins and Revel, for women overy forty, I studied a list of words, and the word "Vision" hit me hard.

As writers, we need "Visions," right? We need to see. I know I need to work on being more observant. I need to see through my vision of this novel and then work on a new vision for the next one. Soon I'll be teaching a class at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival on ReVision. When I looked up the word in my favorite dictionary (Merriam-Webster) after the session, I knew I'd found my word:

Essential Meaning of vision

1: the ability to see : sight or eyesightShe has good/poor vision.She has normal vision. = She has 20/20 vision.

: something that you imagine : a picture that you see in your mindWe had visions of fame and fortune.the architect's vision for the new buildingShe had a clear vision of what she wanted to do.

3: something that you see or dream especially as part of a religious or supernatural experienceHe had a vision of Christ.The idea came to me in a vision.

Full Definition of vision

(Entry 1 of 2)

1a: the act or power of seeing : SIGHT

b: the special sense by which the qualities of an object (such as color, luminosity, shape, and size) constituting its appearance are perceived through a process in which light rays entering the eye are transformed by the retina into electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve

2a: something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasyespecially : a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation

b: a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination

c: a manifestation to the senses of something immateriallook, not at visions, but at realities— Edith Wharton

3a: the act or power of imagination

b(1): mode of seeing or conceiving

(2): unusual discernment or foresighta person of vision

c: direct mystical awareness of the supernatural usually in visible form

4a: something seen

b: a lovely or charming sight

What is your word of the year? If you have one, or if this post has inspired you to choose one, please leave your word in the comments, please!

"Good Bones," a poem by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

(photo by Chris Lawton from Unsplash)

Full Definition of vision

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