I get it. Characters change over the course of a novel. On an emotional level, the characters you start with may be completely different by the end of the story. As a copy editor who works closely with independent publishers, the issue I see is that characters sometimes change nicknames, eye color, or other physical characteristics throughout the course of the story. That is a huge potential problem.
Writing a novel takes a long time. Even consecutive chapters may be written several months apart. When you’re writing an important scene in chapter 31, you don’t want to have to go back through the first several chapters to look up whether or not the childhood neighbor (who has suddenly resurfaced) had a mustache. So let’s say you put one in, having the main character recall something about how it bristled, and this memory is an extremely important key to solving a decades-long mystery.
Read the rest of this article I contributed to the WOW! Women on Writing Newsletter.
My translation of “paper cone,” by Ulrike Draesner, appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Spring 2017.
Now that my old book review site is gone forever, I will occasionally post old book reviews here, to give them new life. For my first #TBT Book Review, I celebrate Women’s History Month with a review of 
My essay, 
Two of my poems – “Ghazal” and “Parable of the Beginning” – appeared in the Winter 2016/2017 issue of Barrow Street. 
My essay, 
My translation of 
My article, 
My article, 
My translations of 