The Power of Writing to YOU Several months ago, I visited the Rubenstein Rare Books & Manuscript Library at Duke University. My purpose? I needed to research an individual for a possible picture book biography. Duke housed my subject’s archives in one of their collections. As I sorted through photographs and papers in the quiet… Read more »
“Chefs, please open your baskets.” With those words, the competition on Chopped, my favorite Food Network show, where four chefs compete against each other in elimination-style appetizer, entree, and dessert rounds, begins At the start of each round the chefs open baskets containing four ingredients that must be used in the dish—unusual ingredients such as… Read more »
Hello DIY MFA community! It’s truly a privilege to join you today as the newest member of the DIY MFA team. I’ve been part of this awesome word nerd tribe for a while. Thank you, Gabriela, for inviting me to now come onboard as the new Creative Nonfiction columnist. I love creative nonfiction, especially memoir…. Read more »
To broaden my reading horizons, I’ve recently started helping with the review of nonfiction submissions for a literary magazine. I’ll be honest, I was a bit nervous to dive into that slush pile at first. Sure, I read nonfiction every now and then—from memoirs to the occasional New Yorker piece—but I’ve never attempted to write… Read more »
Many authors have day jobs that are completely unrelated to their writing. For example, Caitriona Lally, who wrote her novel while working as a janitor at her alma mater, Trinity College, which recently gave her a prestigious award for her novel Eggshells. The article about Lally mentions that she graduated with a degree in English… Read more »
I admit it. The last few weeks I have been unfocused and out of it. I’ve avoided my writing for other activities. Maybe it’s the 100 degree weather or just navigating a return from the gratifying wanderlust of vacation, but it’s been all too easy to procrastinate instead of generate new writing or revise the… Read more »
Last year, I successfully pitched and submitted an essay to a well-known creative nonfiction magazine. It was an essay I’m proud of, one that was inspired by a Twitter thread originally posted by the editor I wrote for. But unfortunately the editor turned down my piece, because the ending didn’t have that unexpected element she… Read more »
In Hunger, Roxane Gay faces a litany of uncomfortable truths: the way we body shame, dismiss rape victims, and look to families who can sometimes increase the weight of our most private suffering when they don’t understand the entirety of the situation. Sometimes oversimplified as a memoir about gaining and losing weight, Hunger is so… Read more »
Besides actually doing the writing, I’ve found that the hardest part of forging a writing career is making goals. There are more opportunities now then there have ever been: you can submit to literary magazines, pitch to editors at almost any publication, apply for writing residencies, and, if the opportunity presents itself, go to graduate… Read more »
Do you remember the old advice you heard from writing teachers or craft books: make all five senses—taste, touch, sound, sight, and smell—part of the scene? It may not seem like it, but this advice invites you to write about the body in such a way that your readers feel physically present in the prose…. Read more »
