This is the first in a series of postings about Oregon authors and their good writing days.

Monica Drake’s novel Clown Girl was selected as a finalist in the novel for the 2007 Oregon Book Awards. Monica lives in Portland and teaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Clown Girl was recently reissued by Powell’s and Hawthorne Books as a limited edition hardback.

I asked Monica to describe a good writing day. She replied:

“A good writing day, for me, is one where I can concentrate fully, enter into the material, and maybe see it in a whole new way. Then I might stumble across an unexpected sentence, or some quality in the writing, something that keeps it surprising, new and compelling. That’s a good time.”

Here’s a writing prompt from Monica: Write about something you’d never tell your mother.