In this post, we’ll consider the challenges of trying to change people’s minds, trying to urge action, trying to change the world, or some portion thereof, explicitly with your words. While the examples I reference are from creative nonfiction, I believe the tips can apply to fiction or poetry as well. In response to the… Read more »
So, you want to write about your dysfunctional family. Well, good for you. (And if you’re one of the lucky few who wants to write about your functional family, I’m not your Huckleberry). Family dynamics are difficult enough to grasp, let alone write about. But when properly explored, they make for powerful stories. Here’s a… Read more »
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Helen Zuman, author of Mating in Captivity. This book is a memoir of her five years, post-Harvard, at Zendik Farm, a neo-hippie cult with a radical take on sex and relationships. Her memoir has received many honors. It got a starred review from Kirkus and was named Kirkus… Read more »
Writing a memoir is not easy. Like any genre, we need a compelling narrative arc driven by good scenes full of sensory details and great dialog. But we also need to create meaning from experience and offer takeaways for our readers. We need to claim our own emotional truth. Negative critics jabber away in our… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Miriam Feldman. Miriam is a painter, writer, and mother originally from Los Angeles, California. After her son, Nick’s, diagnosis with Schizophrenia more than ten years ago, she began writing to document and explore the ways this new reality affected her relationship with her children,… Read more »
Do you love talking about the books you read with friends, classmates, or your book club? (I know. All of us word nerds love to do this, right?) So maybe you’ve noticed, either online or in the back matter of some of the books you own, that authors or publishers sometimes share discussion questions for… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Mag Dimond. Mag Dimond has been a world traveler since the age of eleven, when her mother took her to live in Italy. She has traveled extensively in Europe and Central America, and ventured to such exotic landscapes as India, Cambodia, Bhutan, Japan, Kenya,… Read more »
Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Joe Bunting. Joe is a bestselling writer, novelist, and a dad. He leads The Write Practice community, an award-winning community of creative writers. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Talia and three kids and enjoys coffee and corpse reviver no. 2s. In this episode Joe and… Read more »
Writing about something difficult is, well, difficult—at first. You can’t process something emotionally charged all at once any more than you can write anything from start to finish in one fell swoop. I recommend you JustWrite before you start drafting. Think of this writing as a kind of warm-up that will help you discover what… Read more »
The first time I heard memoir teacher Marion Roach Smith say, “Memoir is not about you,” I thought, Wait … what? Of course my memoir is about me! This probably won’t be a shocker: Marion was right and I was wrong. She goes on to teach us, in her evergreen book, The Memoir Project: A… Read more »
