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Articles by Michelle Wildgen
The Agent as Editor: Making the Most of a Key Collaboration
As you travel along the track to publication, you may not see the next hurdle until you find yourself midair. One of the last, but perhaps most significant, obstacles is the process of editing your work with your agent before submission. Many writers approach this moment—which may be the first time an industry professional reads their manuscript—with little idea of what to expect. How much revision is typical? Are your agent’s suggestions required, or is there space to disagree?
The Literature of Illness, Healing
In 2000, Danielle Ofri, a relatively new attending physician at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, asked her medical students to do something new with their patient histories and treatment plans. Instead of instructing medical students to record formulaic notes, she requested they ask their patients what it was like to have osteoporosis or diabetes or cancer. When she read the resulting essays, a light flicked on.
On Discomfort: The Creative Gift of Being Out of Your Depth
Lately I have been hanging out with a lot of scientists. This is not typical for me. I went to school for English and writing, and the last science courses I took were a botany class that was purged from my brain the moment I completed the final and a geology class in an auditorium with cushy chairs and warm golden lighting that left me physically unable to stay awake.
How to Be Photographed: 12 Tips for Putting Your Best Writerly Face Forward
Every few years I write a book. As penance for my past snark about aging writers using decades-old photos, I always update the author photo. For the first three books, it was fine—a lark, even!—but I was in my thirties then. I took longer to publish my fourth novel, and now, squinting into the setting sun of my forties, I’m being photographed more than ever. (I realize this makes it sound as if the paparazzi are after me, which they are not.
Author Q&A: Wine industry rivals face fork in the road
Madison author Michelle Wildgen knows that when many people think of wine — and people who write about wine — they envision “old men talking about Bordeaux.” “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Wildgen says about her latest novel, “Wine People,” published in August. Her book is “not too serious or snobby” but looks at the dynamics of two women trying to succeed in the wine business. Wildgen will discuss her book during the Wisconsin Book Festival later this month.
Bugging People: A Guide to Research
In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 177. I used to dread research. Well, I liked reading. If I didn’t have to talk to anyone in order to complete a manuscript, that was fine by me.
On Characterization
In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 177. A few years ago, one of my students got stuck in generalities while trying to describe a family member: good-looking, funny, smart. But words like these don’t tell us much, because these characteristics can show up in a hundred different ways. As a reader I want to know: Is the person a hot Wall Street type in a crisp white shirt, or a sexy surfer with sand in his hair?
Falling in Love With Setting
In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 176. For many years, I thought I hated setting. The mere mention of a tree species on the page was my signal to flee, and I never saw the point of describing the land, the city, or the architecture surrounding my characters. A coffee shop was a coffee shop, a house a house, so why belabor the points?
'Wine People' Author Michelle Wildgen Joins Todos Santos Writers Workshop Feb. 2024 Winter Session
(TODOS SANTOS, Baja California Sur) — NEWS: Novelist Michelle Wildgen has joined the faculty of the Todos Santos Writers Workshop for the 11th annual winter session, Feb. 4 – 10, 2024. Wildgen, a longtime editor at Tin House magazine, and author of four novels, will lead the fiction class. Wildgen joins Christopher Merrill (poetry), Karen Karbo (memoir), Jeanne McCulloch (memoir), and Rex Weiner (storytelling strategies) in the acclaimed creative writing retreat’s teaching lineup.
Publishing: Novelist Michelle Wildgen Joins Todos Santos Writers Workshop’s 2024 Winter Session
Novelist Michelle Wildgen has joined the faculty of the Todos Santos Writers Workshop for the 11th annual winter session, Feb. 4 – 10, 2024. Wildgen, a longtime editor at Tin House magazine, and author of four novels, will lead the fiction class. Wildgen joins Christopher Merrill (poetry), Karen Karbo (memoir), Jeanne McCulloch (memoir), and Rex Weiner (storytelling strategies) in the acclaimed creative writing retreat’s teaching lineup.
On the Joys of Food-Centered Fiction
A classmate in an undergrad writing workshop once said to me, “Did you know that the word wine shows up in every one of your stories?” He was absolutely right, but I’d had no idea until he told me. To me, the phrase “a glass of wine” is one of the beauties of the English language, and though I didn’t drink much wine in undergrad, I realized I was mentioning it simply for my own pleasure—I wanted to place an object in my story that was beautiful and desirable, to me and to my characters.
Wine People a book by Michelle Wildgen
A Time Magazine "25 New Books You Need to Read This Summer" "A riveting, behind-the-scenes portrait of a high-drama industry, from the chateau to the corner office...pour a glass and dive in."--Oprah Daily An intoxicating escape into the cutthroat world of wine and the complicated terrain of women's friendship. What happens when two ambitious young women, opposite in every way, join forces in a competitive male-dominated industry?
August 2023 | BookTrib.
THE PARIS ASSIGNMENT A mother’s quest for justice amid the chaos of war BookTrib is thrilled to feature the latest historical mystery from multi-award-winning and international bestselling author Rhys Bowen, the heartbreaking story of a courageous wife and mother determined to avenge her son’s death against inconceivable odds. Bowen’s writing is often praised for its engaging storytelling, rich historical detail, and well-developed characters. The Paris Assignment is no exception.
A Practical Guide to Starting a Group of Your Own
I recently joined a no-reading writers group. We meet once a month to talk writing, publishing, editing, teaching, and any other topics that arise, from Scotland to pet rats. The only thing we don’t do is share our work and discuss it. This no-reading approach was not my idea, but I did enthusiastically embrace it.
Isthmus Dining 2020 | We are what we eat
We all have our favorite cuisines and favorite restaurants. Favorite ingredients and favorite types of food. And then there is that one dish. You know the one. The one you crave years after the restaurant closes. The one you long for when you’re backpacking and stuck with dehydrated chili mac. The one you simply cannot not order when you look at the menu. We spend a good deal of time here at Isthmus talking about food. It’s a lingua franca in a lot of offices and we are no exception.
Isthmus Dining 2020 | Eat map
Even since the pandemic hit, new restaurants have been opening. These capsule reviews represent the new eateries our reviewers dined at from April 2019 until mid-March, 2020: brewpubs, tasting rooms, pizzerias, bistros, taquerias — updated in late August 2020 with each site's pandemic dine-in, patio, delivery and takeout options. Original reviewers were Linda Falkenstein, Allison Geyer, Kelly Green, Kyle Nabilcy, Nigel O’Shea, Candice Wagener and Michelle Wildgen.
Girl Activist
ISBN: 9781941367643 Price: $12.99, $15.99 Can Softcover, 7" x 9", 160 pages Ages 9 and up Available now Check out the other books in this series: Girl Activist by Louisa Kamps, Susanna Daniel, and Michelle Wildgen, illlustrated by Georgia Rucker Mini-biographies of unstoppable women and non-binary activists—from Malala Yousafzai to Susan B.
Sweet space
For a while I heard such regular praise of the Monona location of Buck and Honey’s (the original is in Sun Prairie) that I began to suspect a campaign. The praise itself, friendly and uncomplicated, seemed telling: People just really enjoyed going there. And while I was skeptical of such an expansive menu — appetizers, salads, fish, steak, entrees, sandwiches, burgers, pizza, and pasta — I was also curious.
A little bit French, a little bit Wisco
Cadre opened this fall to plenty of well-earned anticipation. Chef Evan Dannells has done stints at L’Etoile and Merchant, and he was one of the partners who opened the lost gem that was 4 & 20 Bakery and Cafe. Now he’s running his own show in the space formerly occupied by Oliver’s Public House. The results may not be perfect, but they are inventive and promising.
Salvadoran star
There’s an art to creating a menu that feels focused but not narrow. If it tempts a few different appetites and offers enough variety to hold a sense of discovery, chances are I’ll come back more than once. Then again, maybe the kitchen only needs to nail a couple of items so well that you forget that pesky sense of discovery altogether. At Finca Coffee, owners Marleni and Silas Valle have aced that last part.
Ramen vs. sushi
Years ago I fell prey to a ramen addiction, a dark but flavorful time in which I consumed enough springy noodles to last me into my golden years. I still approach fresh ramen sources with great anticipation. Sequoia, billed as a ramen sushi lounge, opened this June where Brocach used to stand on Monroe Street. It first appealed to me for the ramen, but the restaurant throws its weight behind the sushi.
Devil in the details
Little touches can take on outsized significance in a restaurant. Preserved tomato or pickled onion can draw a diner toward one item over another and even back for another visit. They’re how a restaurant shows who it is and why it’s different. Elements that could be skipped, but that the kitchen cared enough to make. To look at the menu, you’d think 107 State has that nailed.
Girl Activist
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The Turbulent Life of the Small-Town Librarian
SUMMER HOURS AT THE ROBBERS LIBRARY By Sue Halpern 368 pp. Harper Perennial. Paper, $15.99. Once a thriving, industrial mill town, Riverton, N.H., is now down to the Dollar Tree store, a hospital cafeteria (which doubles as the only restaurant) and a budget-starved old library.
How I Found Happiness Waiting Tables
During the first few months of my daughter’s life, I went to the farmer’s market every week. Alone or with friends, in glare or drizzle, and even when she was so small she seemed to nurse every ten yards, I would put the baby in her stroller and walk the mile and a half to a cluster of vendors tucked between a playground and a church. I needed that market. I needed to see the stacks of fresh potato bread, the chalky duck eggs, and the shitakes with their meaty, fawn-colored caps.
The Exhilarating Delight of Reading About Women in Search of Themselves
You wonder too, right? About the person you'd be if you weren't dining weekly with your siblings or forever running into your ex-husband at the grocery store.
A Romantic Comedy With Pleasingly Ridiculous Characters
Faith Frankel may have made a few mistakes. She left Brooklyn for Everton, Mass., and “what appeared to be a stress-free job” in stewardship at her alma mater, the Everton Country Day school, but now her knucklehead boss has rather casually accused her of misappropriating funds.
How Art Therapy Helps You De-Stress (Even If You Don't Think You Need It)
There were eight of us around the table. We’d signed up for a two-hour workshop with Madison, Wisconsin, art therapists Mary Williams and Kelly Toltzien, who together founded Madison Art Therapy in 2015. Our number included seven women and one man, mostly in our 30s and 40s. We were there to reconnect with our artistic sides—and our feelings. Williams and Toltzien sat at either end of the table. Williams had silver bands on her fingers and a contagious grin.
In Delia Ephron’s ‘Siracusa,’ Relationships Fall Apart Under the Sicilian Sun
“There are all sorts of foundations for marriage,” says a character in “Siracusa,” Delia Ephron’s taut, sun-baked novel of sexual and marital gamesmanship on the Ionian coast of Sicily. “Lying is one of them.” It may be the primary one if you’re Finn and Taylor Dolan or Michael Shapner and Lizzie Ross, two couples who meet up for a week in Italy. Does it matter that Lizzie and Finn were lovers 15 years earlier? That depends whom you ask and when.
‘Today Is Not Your Day,’ by Marian Thurm
Marian Thurm is either a movingly compassionate observer of human foibles or a charmingly ruthless one. The best stories in her fourth collection, “Today Is Not Your Day,” suggest that she is both. Set primarily in and around New York City, these 11 pieces show characters negotiating everything from romantic and professional mishaps to illness and death.
Kitchen À La Anna
On a humid summer night, I station myself near the kitchen at Merchant and watch Anna Dickson work. It’s still early in the evening, when a lot of folks in the restaurant business tend to tense up in anticipation of the rush. But executive chef Dickson is pure calm, trim in her short-sleeved black chef’s coat and glasses, her red hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. She keeps the counter before her spotless, periodically removing a speck of fresh parsley and re-folding her towel each time.
Margaret Forster’s ‘Unknown Bridesmaid’
There may be no bigger mystery to a child than her own family — those adults who pretend not to notice even the most glaring issues, who make peculiar requests and then refuse to explain a thing. For Julia, the central character in Margaret Forster’s psychological puzzle-box of a novel, even basic factual information can be mystifying. Were her actions as a girl harmless or grave? She herself doesn’t know, and the uncertainty colors the rest of her life.
Boek | Jij bent mij - M. Wildgen, Michelle Wildgen
Uitgeverij The House of Books (Overamstel Uitgevers) Uitgegeven als Paperback Eerste editie 31-10-2007 Laatste editie 31-10-2007 ISBN 9789044319583 Aantal pagina's 351 Taal Nederlands Hoogste positie Hebban Rank 2858
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