Cold

This week in the COLD, we dive back into family lore. We explore estrangement from a parent, grief, and the unorthodox gift of a misfit relative. Please find a comfortable spot, pour yourself something warm, close your eyes and have a listen. My BREATH series (books 1 and 2 will be on sale this weekend (Friday, the 29th and Saturday the 30th of September). BREATH, book 1: Amazon.com: Breath: An Ep...

This week in the Cold, I tell you all about one of the biggest pieces of shite that I've not only ever come across, but actually had the audacity to translate and produce for the stage. And I say this with tremendous affection. I do this not to torture you, but to demonstrate why, sometimes, really bad stories hit a sweet spot in the greater culture and go on to phenomenal success. Victoria&#3...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about learning to listen to our muses, and subsequently, developing our true voices as writers. Will you write explicit sex into a love scene, or leave most of that to the reader's imagination? How far will you go with violence? When developing a magic system, will you make it subtle or spells-and-broomsticks obvious? Making these decisions is crucial t...

This week in the Cold, I give you the skinny about what it's been like to renovate a nearly two-hundred-year-old house over the course of almost twenty years, and how this process mirrors the creative process. Particularly the process of conceiving and writing a novel or series. If you love adventure, you won't want to miss it. Victoria's website: Welcome to Victoria Dougherty Books Vi...

This week on Cold, we talk about absorbing and interpreting our very own surroundings as part of our stories. We delve into my experience as a northerner who has now lived most of her adult life in the south, and what it's like to view a place as an outsider, but eventually blend in and become something resembling a local. Victoria's website: Welcome to Victoria Dougherty Books Victoria&#3...

This week in the Cold, we're stripping off our clothes and laying in the heat. We're scratching our mosquito bites with complete abandon, bathing in any body of water that is not a bathtub, singing out loud and chewing on onion grass. Join us and leave your favorite summer stories and activities in the comments! Victoria's website: Welcome to Victoria Dougherty Books Victoria's Ama...

This week in the Cold, we're celebrating summer with my own updated story of the country mouse and city mouse. This one is complete with teenage girls, bugs and snakes, visits to The Met, ghosts, Civil War battlefields, and even the cast of "Hamilton." You won't want to miss it! Victoria on Amazon: Amazon.com: Victoria Dougherty: books, biography, latest update Victoria's web...

This week in the Cold, we talk about the artist Mirna Pavlovic's obsession with grand, abandoned places and how her vision corresponds with a writer's (at least this writer's) exploration of damaged characters plagued by broken dreams, violence, and lost love. We also talk about abandoned stories and why it's important to revisit them. Please have a listen. Check out Mirna Pavlovic...

This week in the Cold, we're celebrating American Independence Day by talking about family lore and the impact it has on our lives as citizens and creators. My own family's harrowing American story has informed my outlook on love, parenting, speech, and civic responsibility. The incredible tales I grew up hearing around our family dinner table - including our "coming to America"...

This week in the Cold, we're celebrating Father's Day by talking about what it takes to make a man - both in fiction and in the Homeric journey of parenting. And yes, they overlap big time - at least for this parent and fiction writer. If you're enjoying Cold, please remember to give us a follow and leave a starred review. It means a lot. Oh, and here's the Radio Prague interview r...

This week in the Cold, we're pouring ourselves a whiskey, lighting up a smoke, and slipping into the wonderful, seedy, stylish, dark, and darkly funny world of Noir! Victoria's Amazon Page (including some of my own noir thrillers): Amazon.com: Victoria Dougherty: books, biography, latest update Links to some of my favorite noir thrillers: London Boulevard: A Novel - Kindle edition by Bruen...

This week in the Cold we're talking about really makes up the creative life, picking apart the actual bones of creativity, and the foundation upon which wild notions and beautiful things are built. BREATH (Book 1 of the BREATH series) is available free for download this week only! Get it while it's Cold! Amazon.com: Breath: An Epic Historical Fantasy Saga (Book 1 of the Breath series) eBoo...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about the difficulties inherent in taking a fresh, cold eye to your own work. In making your metaphors original, lyrical, and true, and turning the everyday into the fascinating, even magical. In essence, this involves approaching our work like a scientist and asking the very questions of ourselves that would produce counterintuitive answers full of wonder...

This week in the Cold, we're going all in on the Cold War! I've been immersing myself in Cold War art, photography and aesthetics as I've been writing a new, episodic Cold War noir thriller set in Moscow, Berlin, and Bombay in the late 1950s and it's been a blast! And I'm so happy to take you through some of my favorite Cold War memories and experiences! Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi’s...

This week in the Cold, we talk about how the stories we create and consume allow us to explore our deepest darkest fears. Listen...IF YOU DARE! Victoria's Amazon Page: Amazon.com: Victoria Dougherty: books, biography, latest update Victoria's website: Welcome to Victoria Dougherty Books This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2023/04/21/our-de...

This week in the Cold, we're not only talking about how our food experiences affect our lives, but how they make their way into the stories we create (or merely enjoy). Just for fun, I'm leaving you with a very ethnic Eastern European recipe that my people love. It may seem weird and little outside of your comfort zone, but that's the point, so give it a shot. And don't forget to l...

This week in The Cold, we are diving into our most primal selves. I think it is nearly impossible to overestimate the role of ritual and faith in how we see the world - in the stories we consume, we tell ourselves, and we tell others. This is as true of the atheist as it is the believer, because it is the way human beings have made sense of the world since the dawn of time. We see it in every fict...

Doesn't it seem like almost everyone knows someone who they believe was or is a spy? That's why this week in The Cold, we're talking about spies and the spy genre. I've got my stories and I'm telling them! The Hungarian by Victoria Dougherty is on sale in trade paperback: Amazon.com: The Hungarian: 9781734223460: Dougherty, Victoria: Books Victoria's Amazon page: Amazon.com...

This week in the Cold, we talk about how externals - a new environment, the music we listen to - influence the story-making process. In my own experience, moving to a rural part of the country, after having been a city-dweller all my life, and discovering country music, has had a deep and profound impact in how I tell a story and create a character. The Hungarian by Victoria Dougherty (Cold War th...

This week in the Cold, I tell a great vacation romance story and we ponder how deeply well told, important stories impact our lives. How they help us make sense of our emotions, organize our thoughts, and inspire the stories we write and create, or merely fantasize about. Savage Island: A BREATH Novel: Amazon.com: Savage Island: A Breath Novel eBook : Dougherty, Victoria: Kindle Store Victoria's A...

This week in the Cold, we go demonic and talk about all manner of community lore, but especially about the real events that inspired the classic novel and 1973 film, "The Exorcist." This is a deep dive into how non-fiction becomes lore, which turns into fiction that spreads like wildfire!  This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2023/02/24/go-to-...

This week in the Cold, we're tearing our eyes away from our lovers and giving some much-needed attention to the other love story in our lives - the one we experience with our communities. Check out Victoria's Amazon page: Amazon.com: Victoria Dougherty: books, biography, latest update Victoria website: Welcome to Victoria Dougherty Books This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victo...

This week in the Cold, we talk about the structural similarities between popular fictional love stories and our own real-life love stories. According to readers, how a pair of lovers meet and come to be together is critical to their enjoyment of a story and features prominently in their continued interest in what happens to those characters. According to the most extensive research on long term re...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about the art and purpose of conversation.  Not just any conversation, but the kind that allows for nuance, true insights, a real connection. As a fiction writer, my greatest tool is observation. To be able to capture the essence of a character and do it generously is what makes for a good story, as far as I'm concerned. Something that feels light on the p...

This week in the Cold, we talk about the thrill inherent in doing our absolute best. How the pursuit of excellence is a noble exercise; especially when we’re able to separate the pursuit from the actual outcome.  www.victoriadoughertybooks.com BREATH series: Breath (3 book series) Kindle Edition (amazon.com) The Cold War Chronicles: The Cold War Chronicles (2 book series) Kindle Edition (amaz...