Articles
“ADHD: A Writer’s Curse or Advantage?” Writer’s Digest
Author Shelly Sanders shares her journey with undiagnosed ADHD and questions whether it’s helpful or harmful for her writing and life.
It’s five-thirty in the morning and I’m drinking black coffee (no sugar) to slow the racing thoughts in my head. I’m sitting at my writing desk, cluttered with my laptop, books, and journals filled with my hard-to-read-scrawl. My foot taps the floor like a compulsion. I squirm in my seat. Energy charges through my veins like static electricity. I arch my back. As the caffeine spreads through my brain, my excess energy decreases and my ability to focus increases. My foot stills. The distracting thoughts in my head fade. I concentrate on my screen, reading paragraphs I wrote yesterday, spotting awkward sentences and words that don’t fit. Finally, I am hyper-focused. Finally, everything around me blurs to a distant hum. Finally, I hunch over my keyboard, revise, and write.
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“Balancing History and Story in Historical Fiction,” Writer’s Digest
Author Shelly Sanders shares the historical fiction books that led her to writing her own historical fiction novels, and tips on balancing history and story when pursuing historical fiction.
Growing up in suburban Chicago, an hour from the Wisconsin border, I devoured The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. These novels, which begin in Wisconsin in the late 1800s, were my introduction to historical fiction. Wilder’s simple yet insightful words gave me a vivid sense of what it was like to grow up in midwest America: “They were cosy and comfortable in their little house made of logs, with the snow drifted around it and the wind crying because it could not get in by the fire.”
Laura was the reason I read and re-read these books…
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“Family Secrets Rooted in Latvia,” Jewish Book Council
I decided it was time to investigate my Nana’s guarded past in 2017, when my son was exploring universities. She’d died when I was thirteen, taking her childhood secrets about growing up in Russia with her to the grave. Nana never spoke about why she’d concealed her Judaism when she came to Canada. When my great-grandmother, Sophie, died (she had immigrated after WWII), Nana didn’t even let my mother attend the funeral; she didn’t want her knowing Sophie was buried in a Jewish cemetery.
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“Daughters of the Occupation,” Lilith
A Q&A with author Shelly Sanders
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