I’m not a fan of Leonard Cohen but I am a fan of the Greek island connected to his early fame. Hydra is where Leonard went as a young poet with little money but an earnest zeal to work on his art. Most of us know the rest of the story. Hydra’s calm gave him the peace to write Flowers for Hitler and Beautiful Losers, and it is where he met his most famous muse Marianne.

I probably know more than the average non-fan about Cohen. Primarily, because I edited The Water and the Wine by Tamar H...

What kind of life do we have after menopause? It’s a question that’s been much debated recently. I don’t want to go into hormonal issues, that varies so much from woman to woman. However, life after we reach our fifties oftentimes comes down to how we look at our future.

We can look backwards to all that’s passed and grow quite wistful because that time is over – our own childhood, parents, the teenage years, romance, marriage, kids. However, if we’re only going to look back at ...

We see a lot of manuscripts and sometimes, just sometimes, the opening paragraphs draw you in and immerse in the story almost immediately. When this happens, it is nothing but joy – just as it was in the ancient days of storytelling when the art began with ‘Let me tell you a story,’ or ‘Once upon a time’.

I do not know any editor who would disagree that an easy entry into a story is critical. First and foremost, we are readers, and it is the writers’ job to draw us in. If you do ...