My Favorite Short Stories on My Favorite Podcasts
I’m so surprised that more of my writer friends don’t listen to fiction podcasts. Most of them are free—free!—and a great way to enjoy novels and short stories. You can subscribe to all the podcasts mentioned here via iTunes (also free!); all you have to do is download the program and start searching for podcasts in the iTunes store. After you subscribe, new issues of the podcasts you’ve chosen will automatically download to your iTunes account as they come in. But you don’t have to subscribe to listen to the stories I’ve listed here; Just click on the story title and...
Read MoreDeveloping Desire: Why Knowing What Your Character Wants May Not Be Enough
I started such a brilliant novel a few years ago. Oh it would have been groundbreaking, won awards, made me famous. At least that’s what I thought after I wrote the first chapter. It was about a girl who was searching through time for her long-lost boyfriend and soul mate, but he’d been born into another body and she didn’t know what he looked like. Brilliant! Okay, that’s debatable, but it really had desire. I had taken to heart what I’d learned from so many writing teachers and books: know what your character wants. She wanted this man. Bad. My favourite writing book at the...
Read MoreNewsy Bits
I was delighted to open my mail on Friday and find a copy of Reality Imagined: Stories of Identity and Change, published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson. My short story “Mouse” is included along with stories by a some great Canadian authors like Jean Little, Linda Holdman, Sheree Fitch, Kathy Stinson and Ted Staunton. I was really thrilled to be included. “Mouse” is a story about a mother’s mental illness as seen though the eyes of a child who doesn’t understand it. It won second prize in the Toronto Star’s short story contest some years back, and...
Read MoreWriter’s Block, Writing Partners, and “the Dread”
Back before I started my first novel, I asked my full-time writer friends how they did it, how they sat down at their desks every day without that feeling of dread, that feeling that their desk was repelling them like a magnet. None were very helpful, I must say. I got some blank stares, maybe a few, “Y…es, I remember that it was like that once…” but no definite answers as to how to combat that particular form of writer’s block that sometimes affects new writers: the inability to get started and keep the momentum going. When I was a young student just beginning to tell people (in a...
Read MoreMichael Hauge—A Different Way of Thinking about Character Development
Last month a number of other children’s authors and I attended the Screenwriters’ Summit in Toronto. I’ve already written about what I learned from speakers Linda Seger and John Truby, and now I’ve finally found a moment to write about my favourite speaker of the conference, Michael Hauge. Because all the speakers have books that they’d love you to buy, I haven’t summarized their entire talks; instead Ive chosen the one nugget of wisdom in each that struck me the most. Michael Hauge is well known for his Six Stage Plot Structure, and he writes very powerfully about how to create...
Read MoreFirst Blurbs for Witchlanders!
I’m so thrilled that these three wonderful authors have provided blurbs for my forthcoming book, Witchlanders. I hope they pique your curiosity about the book, which will be coming out from Atheneum on August 30th. It’s getting close! “As unique and enchanting a world as Garth Nix’s Abhorsen myth: here’s a thrilling tale of the clash between two magical races, Witchlanders and Baen, seen through the eyes of very likeable young characters. And it’s written in beautiful prose. Warning – you may stay up all night until you are finished and you will want more! Lena Coakley is...
Read MoreAbout Me
Hi! I'm Lena, a young adult fantasy author from Toronto.