Welcome to the curious landscapes of Elizabeth Beechwood - where mountains talk, painted ponies roam the plains, and seals may or may not be selkies.
How to Write Animal Characters: The Secrets to Creating Nonhuman Characters that Capture a Reader’s Imagination
Storytellers have used animal characters to tell human stories since ancient times. Today, stories with animal protagonists can be found in almost every genre, attaining bestseller list status and winning prestigious literary awards. So, what is it about writing from the perspective of non-human entity that appeals to so many writers? Why choose an animal character when writing from a human perspective would be so much easier? And why, after all these centuries are readers still drawn to animal stories?
In How to Write Animal Characters, author and editor Elizabeth Beechwood examines how to create believable, well-rounded animal characters that will resonate with your readers long after “the end.”
In these pages you’ll:
Explore four elements of animal characterization—Point of View/Perception, Behavior, Intelligence, and The Wilding
Identify the challenges of writing animal characters, including the limitations of communication, movement, and knowledge
Study examples from various genres of literature
Apply what you learn to your own stories with writing exercises in each chapter
Bring your curiosity and a playful spirit to the page and screen and get started creating animal characters that will capture your reader’s imagination!
Strange Memories: Short Fiction and Poems for Flying and Forgetting
Memories are open to interpretation, just like the best stories...
From eastern Europe to the Pacific Northwest, this collection explores the complicated and often contradictory dreams and desires of women of all ages and the role that memory plays throughout our lives.
A daughter returns to the island where her mother disappeared, searching the dark waters for a creature that promises oblivion just beyond the shore. In a war-torn village nestled in the Tatra Mountains, a mother's strength falters during labor and the mountains answer her cries for help. The Old West town of Carbondale is known for two things: its prostitutes and the herd of Painted Ponies whose hooves dance across the desert floor under the light of the moon. A young girl summons a demon to help her escape the trailer park where she lives in neglect. Walnuts harvested from a churchyard tree and baked into bread summon memories-and nightmares-of lost loved ones. A sapling travels along the Oregon Trail with a young bride, witnessing her happiness and heartbreak as the journey brings her farther from home and closer to her true strength. An Alzheimer's treatment brings back memories of a woman's past and future lives. Readers will find themselves sinking deeply into the sumptuous, magical realism of Beechwood's stories, only to surface again at the last page, wondering "Was it all a dream?"
