Writing advice and musings from the desk of Marianna Boncek
At my age, my mother was retired. She was of a generation that was promised a pension and social security payments for life. It was a pretty sweet deal. Like so many of their generation, they dreamed of a life of ease in a warm climate. But I am not of that generation. I...
I had the great honor of being guest speaker at the inauguration of Sullivan County’s first poet laureate, Mark Blackford. I first met Mark when he was a student in my 11th grade English class. He was a wild child back then suffering from every adolescent trait teachers find annoying. It became clear that...
I entered National Novel Writing Month with a clear purpose and a plan. I wrote some very good scenes for my young adult novel and I saw the arc forming clearly. I was going nail it in November. Then my 93-year-old father had a massive stroke. It would be an understatement if I said...
November is National Writing Month. NaNoWriMo, as it is called, is a non-profit organization that encourages people to write a 50,000-word novel in one month. Obviously, the month chosen by the organization is November. Thousands of people through-out the world hunker down and spend each day trying to write their 1667 words (the number...
As I go about the task of trying to find an agent for my novel I have been thinking a lot about failure. I have been working hard researching agents, reading books that agents I seem to like have represented and writing and re-writing my query letter. I know that the vast majority of...
On Friday, May 25, 2018, I will be talking about Sholem, New York. Sholem was founded in 1837 near Wawarsing, New York (Ulster County.) While the community itself was not successful, this represents a significant part of Jewish history in the United States as well as, an important part of the history of Ulster...
My play “An American Noel” is the last one. Enjoy!...
About two weeks ago I sat on my back porch having a long talk with Angie Hamilton by phone. I was on my porch in New York and she was at her home in Texas. Her son Johnathan Lee Hamilton has been missing since May 4, 2015. She has been lied to by people...
Earlier this year, Elaine Fernandez, President of Warrior Productions and the Founder/Director of the Hudson Valley Playwrights, challenged four playwrights to write a series of loosely connected plays. The plays were part of a larger multi-media art show depicting life for the average middle class family from the 1950s until present time. We were...
It is the comment I hear most when I am talking about any recent writing projects. I’m going to tell you how I do it all; I don’t do it all. I work hard at a very demanding job to which I commute 1.5 hours each way. I am a full-time PhD student. I...
