Welcome! Welcome!

Welcome to All The World’s Our Page –the blogging home of Claire Gregory, Kristen Callihan, Rachel Walsh, and Jennifer Hendren (call me Jen!).

We’re all writers, brought together by a mutual love of fiction.

We write. We read. We act like complete goofballs together.

And we hope all of you will join in our fun.

To tell you a little about our history, we all met through the Compuserve Books and Writers Forum. We arrived individually, searching for something – validation that the voices inside our heads were in fact normal, camaraderie with other like-minded people, someone to listen to us as we blathered on and on about these strange fictional worlds gripping our hearts and imaginations. What we came away with was so much more. We came away as friends who have a deep appreciation for each other—both as people and as writers.

(For the record, the jury is still out on whether or not the voices inside our heads are normal.)

Most of us have never met one another in person. Two of us live in Australia, two in America. We write in genres all across the board and couldn’t be more different when it comes to personal writing styles. That said, the one thing we do have in common—though individually we would probably argue the exact opposite—is that we all have a love and a talent for storytelling.

We started this blog to share our experiences on the road to publication. Welcome, and I hope you enjoy the ride.

And now…the women of All The World’s Our Page:

RACHEL WALSH

I’m Rachel Walsh, one of the two Aussies who inhabit this space. I live in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia (with the dubious titles of “wine” and “serial killer” capital of Australia, but hey, it’s all inspiration, right?) and I write. A lot. Every day, in fact, in an effort to finish the first draft of my novel, BLOOD OF THE HEART, a novel of suspense set in nineteenth century Paris.

I love the mental gymnastics involved in plotting a tight, darn good tale of suspense; but more than that, I love the thrill of creating worlds and people, and of placing words on a page that convey the full, technicolour splendour of what I see in my mind - on the days that actually works, that is …

Although I’ve come late to this writing caper – being closer to the end of my 30s than I can quite believe – I’ve found that once started, I can’t not write. It’s as simple as that. And if you stick around, you’ll get to see whether I make anything of it. I darn well intend to!

CLAIRE GREGORY

I'm Claire Gregory, the other Australian in this pack of writers. At this point in my life I'm an archaeologist and a mum, but long before any of that my life-long love of reading and words was taking me to other places through writing fiction. Writing has always been a part of me. It's the best way I know to channel my thoughts, feelings and ideas into something productive and beautiful. I love the sense of having the whole world at my fingertips when I sit in front of the keyboard, and the feeling that comes with conjuring up people and places to tell a story just can't be compared to anything else. It's magic, pure and simple.

I dabble in a whole range of genres, from contemporary crime thrillers to Gothic mystery, but my true love is my major work in progress, BETWEEN THE LINES, a tale of the devastation wrought on one rural Australian family by World War I. It combines my deep love of the Australian landscape and history with a burning desire to explore what war means; to those who go, to those who are left behind, and to the later generations who carry on the memories.

KRISTEN CALLIHAN

My name is Kristen Callihan, I’m a hair’s breath shy of 36, I live in Kensington , Maryland –a suburb just outside of Washington DC , and I am addicted to writing fiction. It’s true. When I am not writing, and thus immersed in a world of my making, I get this horrible knot just under my breast bone, a feeling of restlessness comes over me, a need to do SOMETHING. Conversely, when I write, I become euphoric, like one experiencing the first blush of love. Does this happen to anyone else?

My particular genre of choice is historical romance. Why? Certainly romance ranks lowest on the scale of respectability (I blame the covers –er and the often cheesy titles.) But to me, there is nothing in the scope of the human experience as heady as the emotion of love, in all its forms. Falling in love is often one of them most defining moments of our lives. When writing romance, I get to vicariously relive that moment again and again. I also find it challenging to find unique ways of retelling what is essentially an age old story. Now, while I love me some straight out category romances, my own work tends to pull in aspects of my other fictional loves: mystery, paranormal, and action adventure. Such blending of genres may just shoot me in the foot from a marketing standpoint (hope not!) but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

JENNIFER HENDREN

Call me Jen. Jenny (preferably with a Forrest Gump drawl). Jennifer. Hey you. I answer to one and all. I live in Nebraska (please, no corny jokes—and yes, we DO have running water and paved roads), and I’ve been a storyteller for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of which was spending countless hours making up songs—or rather, one song that went on for a really long time. As someone who spent most of her childhood moving from place to place, writing and daydreams became a way for me to escape. A place I could go to that was all my own—constant and dependable. I still like to escape there.

I write stories I would love to read. Stories that are constantly challenging me to push my meager skills as a writer to their limit. I hope I do them justice.


Welcome, everyone!