Going Inside the Secret World of Cloistered Nuns

May 19, 2015 Maura Weiler

When people ask me how I got the idea for my debut novel, Contrition, I can’t really explain it, but I think it started with my desire to find a great place to write. The challenge was, the place I had in mind is inaccessible by definition: a religious cloister where nuns intentionally separate themselves from the world to focus on prayer.

Full Circle: A Visit to Christine Taber's Quindecennial Retrospective at Cypress College Art Gallery

March 21, 2015 Maura Weiler

Just as the Cypress College Art Gallery opened for business, the bell in a nearby tower tolled ten times. I hated that it reminded me of a death knell. I was there to see a retrospective show of the paintings of my friend, Christine Taber, who had lost her life in a bike accident fifteen years earlier. Shortly after she died, I wrote the descriptions of her abstract paintings that later became the inspiration for the realistic, religious paintings in my upcoming debut novel,Contrition.

When Writing Becomes Reality: Our Adoption Journey

March 21, 2015 Maura Weiler

Oscar Wilde was spot on when he said that “life imitates art.” In my case, I wrote about adoption long before I knew I would become an adoptive parent. Having that writing published after I became an adoptive mother adds another layer of responsibility to my storytelling– one that I desperately hope I got right.

The Event That Motivated Me to Write Contrition Was the Last Thing I’d Ever Wish For

December 18, 2014 Maura Weiler

The entire story of my debut novel, Contrition, came to me fully formed in ten minutes. I didn't conceive it so much as hear it playing in my head, as if it were being dictated and all I had to do was commit the major plot points to paper. That had only happened to me once before (and hasn't happened since), so I knew I should write it. The trouble was, I didn't want to write a book.