Hawley Roddick

Together

Two Manhattan couples — Nina and David Northrup, Kitty and Mort Hinks — seem to have it all. What others see is the couples’ wonderful children, successful careers, stylish homes in upscale neighborhoods, and lifestyles that combine comfort and luxury. But image does not a marriage make. Members of this quartet are dissatisfied enough to begin love affairs. What they don’t know is that Mort becomes Nina’s lover while his wife becomes intimately involved with Nina’s husband. How long can the quartet keep their affairs secret? And how long will they want to?

Secret Choices

A novel for anyone who has had, will have, or wonders about having children. In this page-turner, Hawley Roddick skillfully builds a relationship between the reader and Seth and Dinah, who give birth to a child of questionable sexual identity. As if the conflict that tears at all the imaginable — and not predictable — considerations of how to raise this child (boy or girl) are not enough, the established medical community has ideas of its own.

Secret Choices is, at once, an accurate insight into how we become boys or girls or both, and an intriguing novel filled with the value of family. A touching and startling love story runs parallel to the main plot. Reading Secret Choices was an emotional (laughing, crying, infuriating) experience. I recommend it highly." This surprising novel explores the mysteries of our sexuality and of how our sexual natures affect our most intimate and loving relationships.

The plot centers on Lee, a baby born with both female and male sexual characteristics. Energetically meeting the challenge, devoted parents and friends help Lee grow into a lively child with bright hopes for the future. In turn, Lee reveals to them meaningful insights into their own true identities — and the reader shares the journey. The Manhattan setting adds luster to an engaging story.

— Martin Clark

Business Writing Makeovers: Shortcut Solutions to Improve Your Letters, E-Mails, and Faxes

The book covers so many occasions for communication, in and out of what is strictly business, that it is a useful guide to writing in general. It warns of pitfalls and recommends ways around them, but what I found most engaging were the transformations from Original to Makeover, the details and stories coming into focus: the "demotion" story, for instance, or the "retirement" details. Besides its practical purposes, the book discovers the inner workings of many business activities, and it is indeed enlivened by the novelist's invention.

— M. N. Matson

Writing That Means Business: How to Get Your Message Across Simply and Effectively

Full of sound advice.

— Edwin Newman

This splendid book is invaluable

— Peter A. McWilliams

Worth its weight in gold

— National Business Employment Weekly

Your Memoirs: Saving the Stories of Your Life and Work

Hawley Roddick's writing is clean and funny, accessible but not patronizing. Respecting each memoir writer's viewpoint and focus, she suggests various techniques for searching sources, stimulating memory, choosing details, outlining, organizing, writing. Roddick makes it all sound challenging but fun.

— Deborah O'Keefe, author of Readers in Wonderland

To those aspiring authors still slogging through that first draft, I recommend you put your manuscript aside and read Your Memoirs. Professional memoirists, you might consider a quick refresher read of Your Memoirs before you begin a project. [In fact,] if you write in this genre, you’ll want to keep Your Memoirs close by. Fortunately the binding is strong; it can withstand a lot of handling.

— Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett, Women's Memoirs Web Site