Dear Alicia Dearn, In my novel Both Sides of the Fence, there’s a scene when the two main characters are kids, walking home from school and quarreling. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t read it yet. But I will tell you that it was inspired by an experience I had...

Dear Alicia Dearn, I hate the phrase, “guilty pleasure.” My hatred of this phrase started a few years ago when, in my mid-thirties, I went through a bit of a Britney Spears phase. Prior to this, my musical tastes were respectable for a woman of my vintage and...

Dear Alicia Dearn, “We’re going to talk about some shit that’s overdue to be talked about.” This is a sentence in my novel Both Sides of the Fence. I stared at it for a very long time, more than once, over multiple days, during the editing process. Should I use the...