where the writers are

Kristen Caven Plagued by Muses

Kristen Caven
Kristen Caven
Oakland, CA
Member since: Oct, 2008
Last login: 11/17/2009
Last update : 11/13/2009
Contact Me

About Me

  • Every idea has it's ideal expression. Some are meant to be bumper stickers, some are cinematic. I never intended to be a writer but words are at the center of everything. My college cartooning career (Perfectly Revolting) took a back seat way to my publishing—illustration, co-writing, editing, graphic design—job (The Winning Family, On the Wings of Self-Esteem). The opera I wrote turned into a musical (Shoes, a Mirror, and a Big, Pink Rose) and a novella (Everyday Enchantments). A novel (I, Uterus) and memoir (Myth America) take shape and evolve.

kristencaven's Blog

  • The Mills Revolution: 20 Years Later

    November 13, 2009

    • Twenty years ago the Romanians overthrew their corrupt communist government. Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall came down, uniting two long-divided worlds. And twenty years ago, students of Mills College revolted against the decision to admit men. I graduated from Mills in 1988, and like the other alumnae (yes, that’s the correct Latin ending for a plural female noun), I wanted to support ...
  • Confessions of a NaNoWriMo Cheater

    November 3, 2009

    • I am totally cheating on NaNoWriMo! I salute anyone who thinks they can write a novel in a month, but with all my other projects I really need an event to help me crack open my long-languishing novel and "look it in the I" again.It took me many Novembers to get to the 59,000 words I am starting with. The thing will change, I don't know how. The lessons I've learned in the last four ...
  • Swimming in Books

    March 7, 2009

    • Today I took a break from my taxes and went to go shelve books in my son's school library, which had been painted over the summer. Piles of white cardboard boxes, full of hidden treasures, stood in stacks awaiting dispersement by the dozen volunteers huddled at the shelves. I was assigned to the 'B's shelf in Fiction, which included rearranging the 'C's and 'A's to make room. All afternoon I ...
  • Ah, For Rarified Air...

    November 30, 2008

    • I finally decided to bite the bullet and join the Red Room Writer's Society. I'd dreamed of it for years... a stately mansion where brilliant minds toil in silence (the clicking of keyboards), monk-like, churning out literature, sharing secret handshakes... sipping cognac afterwards in collegial fraternity...all for the low, low price of $200 a month! (What struggling writer can afford that?) ...

Syndicate content