poetry
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By Peggy Arthur Greetings! When writers talk about editing, it’s often reduced to a single, intimidating word, editing, as if it’s one sweeping process where your book is either “fixed” or “broken.” The reality is far more layered, intentional, and, when done well, deeply collaborative. Right now, The Pretender’s Game is undergoing both developmental editing…
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By Peggy Arthur Greetings! There are moments in the creative process that feel less like milestones and more like thresholds. This is one of them. I’m thrilled to share that The Pretender’s Game: Book One is officially complete! What follows is the process, step by step, from completion to what comes next. Step One: Finishing the Manuscript…
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By Peggy Arthur Greetings! No one told me that finishing a first novel might require disappearing. Not in a dramatic, romantic way. No cabin in the woods. No vow of silence. Just a series of small, deliberate choices. Staying in when I could have gone out, declining invitations, turning down the noise during a season…
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By Peggy Arthur Greetings! Let’s reframe the way we view brooms. For too long, the broom has been dismissed as a mundane domestic object, reduced to cleaning floors and women’s labor. But when we pause, close our eyes, and listen inward, we make room for intuition to take root. That intuition awakens spirit. Through this…
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By Peggy Arthur Greetings! This Rooted Read stretches forward in time but remains deeply anchored in the past. Unlike the previous books I’ve recommended, Parable of the Sower was written in 1993 and at the time, set in the future, 2024. But not the far-off, flying-cars kind of future. No, the world Octavia Butler imagines…
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“What if the enslaved were never silent?” By Peggy Arthur Greetings! Why It’s Rooted James is not just a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s a literary reckoning—a powerful act of reclamation. Told through the eyes of the enslaved Jim—here named James—Percival Everett unearths a history long buried under myth and whitewashed nostalgia. Everett dares…
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“What if memory never leaves the body?” By Peggy Arthur Greetings! Why It’s Rooted Beloved is a ghost story—but not the kind that simply haunts. It lingers like cigar smoke in the fabric, like memory in the soil. It tells the truth: that the past never dies—it lives in us. Through Morrison’s storytelling, we witness what…
Peggy Arthur 