After reading Nancy Rekow’s oral history works, I wrote to her with questions, hoping for an article that allowed Writing It Real subscribers access to the thought process and background that fed her desire to write oral history. In response, Nancy wrote the following article and sent me this note: “Thanks, Sheila, for sending me…
Category Archives: Writing Makes a Difference
On The Evolution of a Columnist
[Writing It Real subscriber Tina Traster used a time of great change in her personal life to build a bridge from her work as a newspaper journalist to making money with her passion for writing personal essays. This week we hear from her on what writing in the new genre has meant. At the end...
Writing About Place
In graduate school, at California State University-Fresno, Eileen Apperson began what was to become a longer creative non-fiction project when she wrote one short essay about the eradication of Tulare Lake, which was once the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi. She found that her classmates and professor had never heard of the…
Journaling Workshops for Parents
In Lucy Rector Filppu’s journaling classes for parents, men and women gather together to write, cry, laugh, listen, discover, and to learn about themselves and support one another. They arrive in class hoping to find themselves as parents — but they leave with much more. In the last two years, Lucy has inspired over 200…
Whit Press Founder Claudia Mauro Empowers Community Through the Literary Arts
Last year, poet Susan Rich, a Writing It Real in Port Townsend Writers’ Conference faculty member, told conference goers that she was asked to become a Board member for Whit Press in Seattle. She was pleased about helping a press specifically dedicated to benefiting community groups through the publication of books. This winter, Susan suggested…