Buy NOW! Tonight I’m running with the Chicago Read & Run group! We’ll be in the Loop and pass these locations: Printer’s Row: where Mary lives, a refurbished neighborhood that used to house printing and publishing businesses (the Printer's Row Lit Fest will be taking place this weekend) The Chicago Board of Trade: where Mary works, an art deco skyscraper built in 1930 The Chicago Art Institute: first stop on Mary and D’s marathon first date The last is my favorite! Have you b

Register NOW! Only 1 week to go! Here's the official deets! Kick off Printer’s Row Lit Fest weekend with Read & Run Tours and journalist Malissa Rodenburg with a special evening celebrating writers and books. Join us on Wednesday, September 9 at 6:00 PM at the American Writers Museum in Chicago for a casual three-mile run (12:00 minute per mile pace) with author Martha Engber through the Chicago streets that inspired her books’ settings, followed by the first-ever live taping

I’m so happy Malissa Rodenburg will be interviewing me during the Read&Run Chicago event for SCATTERED LIGHT Sept. 9 in Chicago! You can register here. She’s an independent science journalist, editor and poet who’s interviewed dozens of writers for her Writers Who Run column. I’m going to be in good company! All of which has me wondering: how many writers also run? If that’s you, let me know! ___ For updates about Martha’s forthcoming books, news and giveaways, subscribe to h

Buy NOW! For me, novels are all about the magic and internal strength and struggles of the main character, and in creating Ash Reilly in LOST IN SOUND (due out Aug. 11), Clifford Mae Henderson has conjured a complex sleuth of soft do-gooder heart and been-through-it-thick skin. When a clearly mentally ill homeless man known as Captain Eddie finds a murdered young man along a river in the coastal California town of Tres Ojos, the blood on his clothes initially ties him to the

Buy NOW! Ah, to open an email with this sunny message! And how appropriate that Independent Publisher Book Awards gives as much of a nod to my gutsy labor lawyer protagonist, Mary Donahue, as it does to Chicago, the location of the first book, WINTER LIGHT, and SCATTERED LIGHT, this second book in the Mary Donahue Chronicles. Woohoo for the Windy City, a rad place to grow up! ___ For updates about Martha’s forthcoming books, news and giveaways, subscribe to her website: Marth

Yes, I just finished typing those important words, because I’ve finally finished writing OCEAN LIGHT, the third book in the Mary Donahue Chronicles, which began with WINTER LIGHT and was followed last Thanksgiving by SCATTERED LIGHT. There’s still lots of rewriting and shaping until this unusual literary mystery — yes, mystery — turns into a book that’s worth your precious time (the tentative publication date is January 2028). But finishing that final chapter has left me usel

Buy NOW! Three years ago today started my launch week for BLISS ROAD, my memoir about being the daughter of an undiagnosed autistic dad. Since then the book continues to sell well, primarily because of people like you who recommend it to neurodiverse families — those with special needs and those without — who need some help in understanding the challenges they face. Thank you! ___ For updates about Martha’s forthcoming books, news and giveaways, subscribe to her website: Mart

By Roz Morris Buy NOW! Rarely do I find nonfiction memoirs nowadays that combine what Roz Morris accomplishes in her newest book TURN RIGHT AT THE RAINBOW: warm humor; lyrical writing; travel through physical, emotional and time landscapes; and a whimsical, yet deep rumination about what makes a house a home. As soon as long-married writers Roz and her husband, Dave, decide they want to move out of London after thirty-odd years to a more rural location that’s quieter and allo

My sisters and I are off to the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. And talk about impactful women… Chief Moremi III created the reserve in 1963. When he died, his widow, Elizabeth Pulane Moremi, took over and made sure to conserve the wildlife after seeing the toll hunting had taken on the animal population. Takes a woman! I think we’ll be able to explore the waterways in a mokoro, or dug-out canoe hewn from ebony or “sausage-tree.” Ever been in one? ___ For updates about Mar

Buy NOW! I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ “ The American Revolution” series and I loved this quote by Abigail Adams , wife of John Adams , a statesman who heavily influenced the writing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, having helped write the MA Constitution in 1770. And what did he and every other man involved in the process do? Forget the women. As in not one mention. The closest we get is in the 19th Amendment of 1920: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote sha

I don't think it can be said enough that we all need role models when growing up. People who not only look like us, but inspire us to develop the skills and fortitude they embody. Typically my role models were the characters in books. Yes, I was a fan of Nancy Drew because she was smart and a doer, meaning the person who thought of the plan and took action. As a kid I remember feeling frustrated and angry that most movies revolved around men. If women were present, they were

I recently watched a documentary about the male influencers making money off of the “manosphere” on a message that women are no more than subservient body parts. The influencers are what Amanda Ripley of the book “High Conflict” call conflict entrepreneurs who gain money and power — especially via high subscriber rates — by saying outrageous, highly toxic things. The manosphere is the audience of men who are told their manhood is being stolen from them by society and that

As soon as I thought about one of my favorite women in history — there are so many! — the poet, Emily Dickinson , came to mind. She was born in 1830 in Amherst, MA, and had only 10 poems published, yet she wrote almost 1800. Nobody really knew about her passion until after she died and her sister found the poems. The sister had a collection published, but allowed the poems to be edited to fit popular fashion (bah humbug!). Only in 1955 did Thomas H. Johnson create The Comple

Sometimes we humans get pretty judgy about what other people read. Then we get indignant when they throw shade at what we read. Lesson: don’t judge! Each of us have very different reasons for choosing what we read. If a book takes you where you need to be, that’s awesome! I like: sci-fi, literary, poetry, memoirs, essays, short stories, novels What’s your jam? ___ For updates about Martha’s forthcoming books, news and giveaways, subscribe to her website: MarthaEngber.com . SC

Women’s History Month has arrived! Every Monday I’ll post a question that’ll hopefully encourage you to think more deeply about the women who’ve been in your lives. My answer to this question: women who help, but if they need it, accept help, too. I’ve found that’s a necessary combo for every character I’ve ever created, and for myself, too, which I discovered while writing BLISS ROAD . I’ll be the first to admit that the second part of that combo is sometimes wicked hard. _

A story that touches on anything Alzheimer’s might seem too heavy from the get-go, but PERFECT LITTLE WORLDS by Clifford Mae Henderson injects so much humor and humanity that I found myself alternately smiling and tearing up. In 1989, Lucy Mustin, a middle-aged lesbian cake baker from Portland, gets a call from her possibly autistic, and definitely neurodiverse sister, Alice, who says she needs help with their dementia-affected mother. Lucy reluctantly makes the long drive

Buy NOW! Valentine's Day has never seemed like a fair holiday: if you don't have a love interest, too bad for you. So Valentine’s Day has become, for me, a day about loving yourself. And if you're like Mary Donahue does in SCATTERED LIGHT , you might have to learn to love yourself. Because it’s hard to love others if we don’t love ourselves! ___ For updates about Martha’s forthcoming books, news and giveaways, subscribe to her website: MarthaEngber.com . SCATTERED LIGHT , a n

Today 10 internet bookish gals — dedicated readers all — are going to start a monthlong read-along of SCATTERED LIGHT , the sequel to WINTER LIGHT . If you want to join, DM me! Out of curiosity, how many of you are in book clubs? Thank you Kelly Lacey and Love Book Tours for organizing this read-fest! ___ For updates about Martha’s forthcoming books, news and giveaways, subscribe to her website: MarthaEngber.com . SCATTERED LIGHT , a novel, sequel to WINTER LIGHT , (Nov. 202

Buy NOW! I started researching THE WIND THIEF in 1995, the story of Madina, a strange, young Sahara Desert woman who believes she can stop a forthcoming war of winds, and Ajay, the young male thief from Mumbai who tries to dissuade her. The concept of climate change had been a thing for some thirty years already. What inspired me more than any news reports about a warming globe and more severe weather, however, was experiencing nature while backpacking. Standing atop a snow-

Buy SCATTERED LIGHT! Even when writing WINTER LIGHT , my YA book about Mary Donahue as a teen, I already had the ghost of an idea: to show her life in a trilogy. Now that SCATTERED LIGHT , the second book, was just published, I’m hard at work on the third book, OCEAN LIGHT. This has always been my thinking: we all have points in our life where we change, and change big because of what happens to us. After my mom died, I changed, and changed big. Big enough to write my memoir