ARCHIVE FOR Lisa Braxton

The Muse and the Marketplace 2021 is almost here! This year's conference is taking the form of a virtual enhanced writing residency (taking place Wednesday, April 21st - Sunday, April 25th) with new Premium Workshops and the Manuscript Mart (taking place Wednesday, April 28th - Sunday, May 2nd).

This year's conference theme is "Small Victories." We all know what the "big" victories are (landing an agent, snagging a book deal, or getting a flashy award), but this year we aim to celebrate the equally important, tiny, and often unseen victories of our writing lives. In anticipation of the conference, …

 Lisa Braxton, author of the novel The Talking Drum and longtime Grubbie, writes about her experience promoting her novel through the Debutante Ball, a group blog for authors making their debut in the literary world.

The Muse and the Marketplace 2020 will soon kick off on April 3rd in Boston! This year’s theme is “Imagination and Reality,” as many presenters are exploring the boundaries between fact and imagination, and how each contributes to great writing. Here, presenting authors have selected a passage from their own work, highlighting in green which elements came roughly from their direct experience, memory, or fact; while highlighting in blue which elements came from their imagination or speculation.  In this post, Muse presenter Lisa Braxton shares an excerpt from …

I was having my hair done at the salon recently and mentioned to the owner, Mamie, that an essay I’d written had been published in one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies. Over the years she’s heard about my publishing successes and disappointments; I figured with this latest news she’d congratulate me, and quickly return to the clip and curl she was finishing on a customer

One of the best decisions I made about 10 years ago was to join my church book club. As a writer who spends much of her spare time in isolation with her work, I relish the book club meetings. We women gather monthly over potluck meals, glasses of sparkling wine, and desserts that leave us with mild regret. The book selection could be a literary novel, ethnic fiction, a presidential biography, or a bodice ripper bordering on the erotic.