I recently took a writing masterclass taught by the publisher Brooke Warner on finding your writer’s voice.

She presented one definition of voice which initially didn’t make sense to me:

Voice = Courage.

But then she pointed out that the root of the word courage is “cour” and the pieces fell into place. Whether in memoir, where I am expressing my own voice, or in novels, where I ham expressing my voice entwined with the voices of the characters themselves, I must do it from the heart—my heart and my characters’ hearts.