“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 »
“Platform is about cultivating and serving an audience.” I first heard book coach Chad R. Allen make this comment a few months ago. Now, Chad knows a thing or two about platform and books. He’s a former acquisitions editor, with over twenty years of experience in the publishing industry, as well as a writer, blogger,… 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 »
“Everybody I know who wades deep enough into memory’s waters drowns a little.” –Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir I remember sitting at the desk in my hotel room in Philadelphia one Saturday afternoon a few years ago, putting some time into working on my memoir but making zero progress. I was trying to write… Read more »
It was such an incidental, fleeting moment…one that didn’t warrant special notice. And, yet, I noticed. On the evening of May 30, 2017, my daughter, Nikky, and I attended one of the last performances by well-known singer and songwriter Sara Bareilles in the lead role of the musical “Waitress,” on Broadway. Right before the curtain… 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 »
