Learning what keeps other writers on task with particular pieces that are difficult to finish affirms for me that as a writer, I must obey the call of the initial inspiration, even if obeying that call means sitting down again and again through draft after draft to find what I was meant to discover. It…
Category Archives: From Our Contributors
Why I Write: Essayist Sandra Hurtes’ Thoughts
Inspired by the “Why I Write” column in Poets and Writer’s magazine, essayist Sandra Hurtes examined her answer to that question, which is in the title of the following essay that appeared on October 9, 2011 in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Those of us who write, especially those of us who came late to allowing writing…
How a Community Newspaper Works
Many of us who write from personal experience have ideas for columns and features appropriate, we think, for our local newspapers, but we may never have talked with a newspaper editor to find out what things look like from their side of the desk. I became acquainted with Kasia Pierzga, the Whidbey Examiner’s owner, publisher…
From the Editors of Ashland, Oregon’s Ashland Creek Press
I belong to a book promotion group with fiction writer Midge Raymond, author of the short story collection Forgetting English. When she shared the link to a promotional video she and her husband, novelist John Yunker (The Tourist Trail), created, I clicked right over to their YouTube video called “Love in the Time of Amazon.”…
The Road to Dove Creek
Poet and fiction writer Paula Marie Coomer has written an essay about her road to becoming a writer and to publishing her work. Through her story, you will relate to the persistent internal voice (echoed by those who know your essence) that urges you on and makes you take your writing goals seriously—or that finally…