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Category Archives: Archives

This category can only be viewed by members. To view this category, sign up by purchasing Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor - How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor - How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin' On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener -- Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

Hiring the Journal Keeper (and/or the Writer Within)

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 18, 2018 by Sheila BenderOctober 18, 2018

  …the heart…and the learned skills of the conscious mind… make appointments with each other, and keep them, and something begins to happen. Mary Oliver A Poetry Handbook Whether you are someone who sets out to write poems, essays, stories or articles or keeps journals, the thinking and analogy I make in this excerpt from … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in 2014, Archives, Instructional Exercises, The Working Writer, WIR2007, WIR2018, Writing Makes a Difference | Tagged journaling, overcoming writer's block, writing exercises

Letter to Christi on December 27, 2010

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 30, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

In 1992, my colleague Christi Killien and I published Writing in a Convertible with the Top Down with Warner Books. It is a book of correspondence between the two of us about writing, the craft tools we’d learned and the way our ideas and words came from our personal experiences, especially those with our children. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2010

Interview with Bryan Cohen

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 23, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

An interesting email arrived one day recently — a young man from Chicago was hoping I’d take a look at 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More, his new e-book of prompts for writers. Having written many, many prompts myself, I was eager to see what he’d put together, and I … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2010

An Interview with Danica Davidson

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 16, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I often hear from people eager to share their experience as writers with Writing It Real subscribers. I write back to them all with interest in how their experience can clarify aspects of the writing life as well as inspire others to add to their lives as writers. When Danica told me her story, I … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2010

On The Evolution of a Columnist

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 9, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[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 … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2010, Writing Makes a Difference

A Look at Diane Lockward’s Poetry

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 2, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I was introduced to Diane Lockward’s poetry as a member of a Yahoo group dedicated to poets helping one another publicize their work. I read and very much enjoyed her collection What Feeds Us. A 2006 Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize winner, the volume is as witty as it is heartbreaking. Diane’s poems draw her … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2010

Working with the Espresso Book Machine

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 25, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This year, I was introduced to the Espresso Book Machine at a Northwest bookstore and learned there were three of these machines in Western, WA, all of them not too far from where I live. Not too long after that, I met an author publishing his books locally by using one of them and giving … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2010

The Importance of Choosing Your Scenes and Turning Points

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 18, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Because we experience life chronologically, without a clear beginning, middle or end, memoirists tend to write in an episodic way — “this happened, then that happened, and after that… ” — and are often overwhelmed by a huge array of memories and details. When deluged by details and feelings, it’s difficult to sort out what … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2010

Keep Your Perspective

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 11, 2010 by Linda Joy Meyers, Ph.DOctober 30, 2011

[We continue this week with more sage advice from a talented memoir author and psychotherapist who has guided many in writing their life stories. We think you will make good use of her idea for moving ahead even when your material seems too difficult. –Ed.]  When we write memoir, we try to capture real life … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2010

Writing from the Inside Out

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 4, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[Early in her newest book, The Power of Memoir: How to Write Your Healing Story, Linda Joy Myers describes well our feelings as memoir writers: This scenario is a common one with memoir writers — the struggle between the desire to write and all the issues, conflicts and worries that come up at the very … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2010

Worth 1000 Words

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 28, 2010 by Judith KitchenOctober 25, 2011

Creative nonfiction writer and novelist, Judith Kitchen shares with us a fruitful exercise she created for those of us searching for new ways to use photographs to inspire our writing. A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. . . — Susan Sontag, On Photography Traditionally, photographs have been used in nonfiction … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2010

I Just Do Not Understand You

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 21, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[This week we offer a second exercise from Dinty W. Moore, author of The Accidental Buddhist and Crafting the Personal Essay and editor of Brevity magazine. –ed.] Too often, we write about other people because we think we know something about that person, or because we feel that we can weigh in with intelligent correctness … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2010

Just Add Water

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 14, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[This week we are proud to present the first of two exercises that Dinty W. Moore, author of The Accidental Buddhist and Crafting the Personal Essay and editor of Brevity magazine, uses to help his students work in creative nonfiction. –ed.] Many writers habitually compose memoir-based nonfiction as if someone had once ruled “all childhood … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2010

Ekphrastic Poetry

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 7, 2010 by Holly J. HughesDecember 13, 2013

[This week we are starting a series of postings with poetry and creative nonfiction writing exercises offered by writers who teach. No matter what genre you favor, try the exercises they describe, and you will most certainly surprise yourself with new and interesting writing. — ed] The term ekphrastic comes from the Greek ekphrasis—ek “out … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2010

Interview with Jan Vallone

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 30, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I am pleased to post this interview with author Jan Vallone, whose memoir excerpt  “Perspective” appeared as our article last week. It is always a pleasure to correspond with authors about their experience, process, hopes, desires, disappointments and successes and Jan’s descriptions of herself as a goal oriented new writer will resonate for many. Sheila … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2010

Perspective

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 23, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[The following is a chapter from Jan Vallone’s memoir Pieces of Someday. The speaker is a lawyer and 44 -year-old mother of two who longs to become a writer and a teacher of writing. To make the career change, she examines her past, including the demands of her father that she not become a teacher … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2010

Searching for the Writing Life

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 16, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[This essay appeared in The Summerset Review in 2005. The honesty of the author as she investigates her post-MFA-in-Creative-Writing life will resonate with many of us who dream of a life in which our writing is our main focus, a life in which the time we spend working is on behalf of our writing, which … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2010

Who Keeps Journals?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 9, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I recently came across notes I’d taken while working on The Writer’s Journal: 40 Writers and Their Journals. I’d long relished the journals of Emerson and Thoreau and liked reading about how the transcendentalists, including Louisa May Alcott, shared their journals with one another. But when I solicited the poet Henri Cole as a contributor … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2010

To Keep Our Senses Open

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 2, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

It isn’t easy for us to write up to the standards we demand of ourselves when we are writing about those we love who are no longer with us. The more we wish to honor them and the life we resolve to live by incorporating their spirit into ours, the harder it seems to write. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2010

My Mother the Queen

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 19, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This week we are proud to post “My Mother, the Queen,” our first place-winning essay in Writing It Real’s 2010 Spring Contest. I think you’ll find the author’s use of an extended metaphor to describe her mother both poignant and useful. The metaphor facilitates the author’s humor, expressions of love, and evocation of patience while … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2010

“Release,” A Poem by Kristin Henry

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 12, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

After I read Kristin Henry’s poem “Release,” I was drawn to reread it many times over the days I was reading contest entries. I admired its embedded rhymes (“back away./ Her airy body; delirium-like, but true. I’ve/heard them, too) and its rhythms, the way its italicized dialog tells a rich, full story, and the way … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2010

Searching for Mother in the Cochise Stronghold

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 5, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I am proud to present Martha Sarkissian’s place-winning essay. When I read this essay about making a trip to where the author’s mother had grown up, I was impressed with the way she organized her essay around her short stay, skillfully using dialog with a friend who accompanied her and the man who hosted the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2010

A Need to Write

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 29, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Recently, I met Beckie A. Miller online and learned that her writing career began with the need to write about loss. This week in our series on writing grief, I am sharing her first published essay, a recent humorous essay she’s written, and her commentary on the development of her writing life. Beckie describes the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2010

Tethered

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 22, 2010 by Cora Goss-GrubbsOctober 25, 2011

Writing one’s way through grief is a process that helps us integrate our loss into our interior life. Writing about loss, we face life without the physical presence of someone we loved dearly. Having written a memoir about the loss of my son and teaching an online class called “Writing Grief” for those who want … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2010

Inside the Writing of A New Theology: Turning to Poetry In A Time of Grief

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 15, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

A few months ago, Writing it Real subscriber Leslie Wake suggested that she interview me about the writing of my memoir, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief. We began an email correspondence that resulted in the interview we are posting this week. I was honored to be asked to talk … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2010

“In The Fragments” by Sindee Ernst

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 8, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

When guest judge Anna Quinn selected Sindee Ernst’s essay as our Winter No-Contest Contest winner, she wrote, “A wonderful piece. Writer uses specific sensory detail beautifully to evoke feelings of leaving one’s childhood home and discovering another. Strong ending.” Sindee wrote back: Thank you so much for this great news. I enjoyed working on that … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2010

“The Cheetah, The Spider and Me” by Gloria Orlando Ives

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 1, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

So often as writers we know we have captured something in our drafts and have brought the work as far as we can at the moment, but sometimes we miss seeing what our writing is leading us toward. That’s when we need an outside reader who can help us identify the core energy in our … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2010

“He Was Surprised And So Was I” by Meg Hannah House

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 24, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Meg Hannah House won third place in this winter’s Writing It Real No-Contest Contest for her personal essay “He Was Surprised And So Was I”. Our contest was designed so that entrants wrote in response to words they came across in print or heard on TV or the radio or overheard in conversations. All of … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2010

Write an Ending Your Readers Will Savor

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 17, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

A saying goes: Readers pick your current novel if you impress them on the first page, and they’ll buy your next novel if you wow them on the last page. Though all readers enjoy an impressive beginning, the impact of a strong ending can’t be overlooked. Think back to the experience of finishing the last … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2010

Getting to First-Person Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 10, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Over the last few years, I have been getting to know retired Seattle Times journalist Ross Anderson and his wife, Mary Rothschild, a retired Seattle Times editor. Since moving from Seattle to Port Townsend, the couple has made many contributions to our town’s local newspaper, The Port Townsend Leader, and to writers and many others … Continue reading →

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Writing From Historic Journeys

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 3, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Career journalist, Ross Anderson, worked for over 30 years at the Seattle Times, covering everything from the police beat and courts to commercial fishing, though most of his time was spent writing about politics, serving as chief political writer, congressional correspondent and political columnist. Among other awards, he won a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for national … Continue reading →

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Writing Gritty Characters

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 26, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Last week we posted an interview with Harmoni McGlothlin, writer and writing enthusiast, whose website is connecting writers and offering publishing opportunities. This week, she adds her viewpoint on writing strong characters to our fiction article archive by looking into the narrator in the film Fight Club based on a book by Chuck Palahniuk. If … Continue reading →

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Interview with Harmoni McGlothlin

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 20, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

After being asked to be a judge for a creative nonfiction contest at Notes & Grace Notes, an online site for writers, I read the editor’s mission statement and was impressed with the venue for writers seeking peer response and an audience: Our mission is to nourish new talent, reward excellence, and help writers achieve … Continue reading →

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E-Reading

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 13, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

As the publishing industry moves online, you may have ordered books on your computer or gone on your local library’s website to request books or an inter-library loan. But would you ever consider reading a book on a computer or subscribing to your favorite magazine’s electronic edition? Each year, a greater portion of the books … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2010

Instant Literary Pleasure

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 6, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

All of us are in front of computers more than we ever imagined we’d be. Though we often talk about longing for time to curl up with a book, we still find ourselves instead in front of a screen. I’ve had to accept reading on the screen in my life as a writer and editor, … Continue reading →

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Interview with Memoirist Melissa Hart

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 29, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Melissa Hart’s memoir Gringa: A Contradictory Childhood is the story of growing up between the polarity of her parents’ worldviews and the harsh judgment of a dominant culture and surviving. As reader, I was engaged in this tale from the beginning when Hart’s mother leaves her marriage to live in a lesbian relationship and full … Continue reading →

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Small Things Hold Great Meaning

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 22, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Writing poetry does take a certain frame of mind–one in which the poet realizes that small things hold great emotional meaning. We have to trust that whatever comes to mind and heart can help us begin poems. The following exercise is meant to help you find topics for poems and see how well you can … Continue reading →

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What is Poetry?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 15, 2010 by Sheila BenderMarch 24, 2014

William Wordsworth famously defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” and Emily Dickinson explained the sensation of poetry this way, “If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry.” Today, Mark Flanagan writes for About.com that poetry is “the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2010

To Delight in the Feel and Taste of Words in My Mouth

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 8, 2010 by William MawhinneyDecember 6, 2011

This week during National Poetry Month, William Mawhinney offers us an account of the way sound is at the root of his poetry practice. His books, Songs in My Begging Bowl, which appeared in 2002, and Cairns Along the Road, which appeared in 2009, are both available through him for $10 each. To order, email … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2010

Using Lyric Techniques in Your Writing: Part Four

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 1, 2010 by Sheila BenderMarch 24, 2014

Giving Attention to Sentence Construction and to Locution In this last installment of the series on paying attention to the sound your words make on the page, we will discuss the use of interesting (to the ear) sentence variety and phraseology. When you write, write. When you revise, pay attention to what you might do … Continue reading →

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Using Lyric Techniques in Your Writing, Part Three

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 25, 2010 by Sheila BenderMarch 24, 2014

This week we’ll examine more techniques of making meaningful sound on the page to carry emotion and momentum. Onomatopoeia The term onomatopoeia comes from the Greek for “word-making.” It means the employment of one or more words to imitate, echo, or suggest the sound of the thing or action described. Such words include “bang”, “click”, … Continue reading →

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Using Lyric Techniques in Your Writing, Part Two

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 18, 2010 by Sheila BenderMarch 24, 2014

Remember Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven“? Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. `’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at … Continue reading →

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Using Lyric Techniques in Your Writing, Part One

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 11, 2010 by Sheila BenderMarch 24, 2014

An essential element for good writing is a good ear: one must listen to the sound of one’s prose. — Barbara Tuchman Sound itself… is surely a signifier of mood, and thus of message… –Mary Oliver Paying attention to the music in our poetry and prose helps us build the emotional content and meaning of … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction, Part Nine

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 4, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

What is tone? It can seem a hard element to isolate, but we definitely know it when we read it. Compare these two descriptions of the same event: The protest erupted into violence today as police attempted to keep the entrance to the building secure. When they reached the building, the police unleashed their forces … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction, Part Eight

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 25, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

What is a subplot? It is a smaller story inside a larger story and it illuminates the life, times, personalities, themes and issues of the main characters, often by introducing peripheral characters and events. In novels (and in films) subplots are typically the place that readers make their identification with the main character. Writing in … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction, Part Seven

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 17, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Francois Camoin writes in “The Textures of Fiction,” a contribution to Words Overflown by Stars, edited by David Jauss, that fiction is: little bits of action to keep us turning the page, to keep us moving through the landscape that is the point of the enterprise. The events and characters exist for the sake of … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction, Part Six

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 11, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

In real life, spoken language together with body language carries mountains of information and, like many if not most writers, you may find it difficult to convey the richness of this in prose. But you have already started writing dialog by doing writers Adrienne Harun and Midge Raymond’s exercises on character development in last week’s … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction, Part Five

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 4, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

As humans, we are wired for empathy and vicarious living, so we easily put ourselves into stories if we can identify with what the characters are going through in the emotional and physical situations they encounter. Whether we are reading about war heroes who perform godlike acts and save hundreds of people or the girl … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction, Part Four

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 28, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Who is telling the story you are writing? It’s an important choice because it dictates what kind of information the narrator knows, and it reveals the window through which you must tell your story to your readers. Will your story be told in the first person? For instance: I had a little lamb, who followed … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction Writing, Part Three

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 21, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Last week we worked on getting to know your protagonist and understanding the necessity of creating a fictional dream for readers. The week before we worked on narrative line and time frame. Now, we’ll turn to developing plot and arc of story. If you are writing a story, you may certainly keep pumping out the … Continue reading →

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The Craft of Fiction, Part Two

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 14, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Last week we explored story ideas and ways to develop them by establishing a narrative line and a time frame. This week we are going to think about the story’s protagonist, his or her nature, dilemmas and settings. In following weeks, we’ll focus on plot, story arc, dialog, tone, and further character development. Whether you … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2009

The Craft of Fiction, Part One

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 7, 2010 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Whether you are talking about short stories by Raymond Carver, novels by Barbara Kingsolver, or sudden fiction by Bruce Holland Rogers, you are reading stories that sprang from the imagination of the authors. Although the stories may in some way reflect events, characters and settings in the lives of the writers, the story elements are … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2010

What is Creative Writing?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 31, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

These last few months, I’ve been researching for a book I’m writing for McGraw-Hill’s education department. It’s called Creative Writing Demystified and is meant for use in high school and college classrooms. Creative writing is a broad term that covers a lot of ground, and when I share this title with writers I know, they … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2009

Five Principles to Write By

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 24, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Author Joel M. Vance offers a tightly written essay on tips for writers — ones we shouldn’t forget when we are polishing our work and ones we should remember as we are focusing and developing it. Following the essay is writing by Joel that originally appeared in Wisconsin Trails. He says, “I cut the original … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Journaling to Wake Up Your Dream Machine

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 17, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

“We are all already poets in the depths of ourselves — as our image-filled and wildly imaginative dreams show us!” David Richo in Being True to Life When I collected journal entries from contemporary writers for The Writer’s Journal: 40 Contemporary Writers and their Journals, I learned how significant dreams can be for writers. Several … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

The Annual Christmas Dress Shopping Trip

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 10, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This week, I am sharing my developmental editing responses to another Honorable Mention essay in our Summer 2009 No-Contest Contest. You’ll see Karen B. Call’s original contest entry, my written responses to her work and then her revised essay. You’ll see the benefit of reader response that encourages writers to invite more detail into their … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2009

Tenderness and Meat Loaf

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 3, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Continuing in our revision diary category posts, this week we are sharing an essay by Jack Shea, one of two essays that our guest judge Brenda Miller chose as honorable mention in our recent contest. My developmental editing comments inserted into Jack’s entry and Jack’s re-entered revision for our Writing It Real Fall 2009 No-Contest … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2009

The Berry Patch

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 26, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Reading the draft Joyce sent to us for the Fall 2009 Writing It Real No-Contest Contest and the tweaked version, you’ll see an example of the importance of polish editing. Although an essay might be “all there” on the page, rearranging some paragraphs and tweaking the ending can make a huge difference in the effect … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2009

Porch Swings

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 19, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

In this article, we present Lisa Kee’s winning essay from our Fall 2009 No-Contest Contest. Each entrant submitted an essay, which I read and responded to. All entrants had the opportunity to revise their essays after reading my comments and re-submit. Our guest judge, Brenda Miller, author of Season of the Body and Blessing of … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2009

Julie Barker’s First Place Essay Overturned

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 12, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

In this article, we present Julie Barker’s winning essay from our Fall 2009 No-Contest Contest. Each entrant submitted an essay, which I read and responded to. All entrants had the opportunity to revise their essays after reading my comments and re-submit. Our guest judge, Brenda Miller, author of Season of the Body and Blessing of … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2009

Interview with Libertary.com

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 5, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

With the traditional publishing world in flux as publishing houses balance the cost of printing and advertising books against their sales numbers, more and more book loving entrepreneurs are finding ways to stay abreast of readers’ changing habits and bring the words of authors they admire to the public’s attention. To publish means, in its … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Insight at the Intersection of Past and Present

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 29, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

In Betsy Howell’s book Acoustic Shadows: Men at War and a Daughter Who Remembers Them, the author searches for an understanding of her family’s emotional legacy. After her parents’ deaths, she realizes that there is no one to tell her what she never learned about their pasts. Somehow, she must find what she needs to … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2009

Finding One’s Way Through Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 21, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Betsy L. Howell, an only child, was 31 when both of her parents had died. She was drinking and upset with herself when she started to ask questions about her parents’ lives and read the family heirloom her father treasured — the diary of his great grandfather’s Civil War experience. Drawn in by the journals … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Retracing Her Great-Great-Grandfather’s Footsteps

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 15, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

The following is an excerpt from Acoustic Shadows: Men at War and a Daughter Who Remembers Them by Betsy Howell. At 31, after the death of both her parents, Betsy sought solace in a family heirloom–the diary of her great-great-grandfather James Darsie Heath’s journals documenting his service in the Union army during the Civil War. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

2000 Words or 2:00

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 8, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Meg Waite Clayton’s novel, The Wednesday Sisters invites you in to the lives of five suburban young moms in the late sixties. Frankie, Linda, Brett, Ally, and Kath, want more from their lives than family and playgrounds can provide, yet they don’t even know what they are yearning for when they first bond over the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

First

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 1, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Seven years ago this October, Kurt and I launched Writing It Real. It would have been Seth Bender’s 27th birthday, had he not died in December, 2000 in a snowboarding accident. The magazine’s first article was “A Special Birthday,” explaining our purpose in offering the magazine so people would have the “right food and the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Los Tulares: The Place of the Rushes

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 24, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Many of us have a connection to place and want to use research about that location’s founding, settlement, history, flora and fauna in our writing. Eileen Apperson’s essay about Los Tulares provides a good example of how love of place and fact finding can make an informative essay that preserves and shares valuable knowledge. Los … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Writing About Place

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 17, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

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 … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2009, Writing Makes a Difference

A Quiet Ache

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 10, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This essay, which won an American Jewish Press Award, originally appeared in the April 2004 Hadassah Magazine, April 2004. It is included in a collection of essays by Sandra Hurtes, On My Way To Someplace Else, that will be out next month from Poetica Publishing Company. Pre-orders may be made at OnMyWayEssays@yahoo.com. The price is … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Pursuing the Dream of Publishing Personal Essays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 3, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

The following conversation with essayist Sandra Hurtes helps us all realize that we have it in us to pursue the dream of publishing our essays. We need to stick with it, listen to others, and find the publications that are seeking what we are writing about. Sheila Tell me about your writing career — how … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

The Greatest Block of All

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 27, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This week’s article by British author Jo Parfitt recounts the story of her early writing success and extracts the elements of that success for others to emulate. Getting a book published does not have to depend on who you know (although publishing contacts are always helpful, of course!) and if you graduated from a writing … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2009

Our Baby, Not Yours

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 20, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Barbara Graham’s essay about the birth of her granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, and the changes it made in her and her family are not only the subject of this wonderful essay but also the inspiration for a whole anthology of writings by women writers on grandmothering, Eye of My Heart published this year by HarperCollins. Last … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Conversation on Creating and Supporting an Anthology of Essays by Many Contributors

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 13, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Earlier this year, Writing It Real contributor Steven Winn wrote me that Barbara Graham, a former San Francisco Chronicle colleague of his, was publishing a collection of essays by women writers on grandmothering. He wondered if I would be interested in contacting her. Writing from the life experiences of becoming a grandparent, moving into a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Exactly How to Write the Narrative Essay

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 5, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[This essay was adapted by the author from her book Naked, Drunk and Writing: Writing Essays and Memoirs for Love and for Money] For all its charm and sometimes apparent aimlessness, an essay has a skeleton, an underlying structure that makes it work. Often it’s the age-old structure of a story. By “story” I don’t … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2009

Making Poetry From the Prose of Our Daily Lives

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 30, 2009 by Kathy LockwoodSeptember 17, 2013

I have recently completed one more semester of mentoring graduate student Kathy Lockwood in her Creative Writing program at Alaska Pacific University. Here is a third article from our series of exchanges about writing poetry. Just before Kathy sent this letter, she called me. She was frantic about getting back to writing poetry on time … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Writing in Style

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 23, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Last week we posted an interview with memoirist Sue William Silverman. This week’s article is an excerpt from her new book, Fearless Confessions: A Writers Guide to Memoir, and  is reprinted here with the permission of the author and University of Georgia Press. Writing In Style I love red shoes. Always have, always will. I … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

On Sue William Silverman’s Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 16, 2009 by Sue William SilvermanMay 21, 2014

Memoirist Sue William Silverman’s guide for memoir writing is hot off the press this month. Fearless Confessions is immensely useful and absorbing. Its tone is warm, patient, helpful and reassuring, and it is itself an example of its lessons — it reads like a memoir about writing memoir and is quite playful as it goes … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2009

Learning from Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 9, 2009 by Kathy LockwoodOctober 30, 2011

As I continue to mentor Kathy Lockwood, who attends Alaska Pacific College in Anchorage, I grow and learn by considering her poems and her readings of the published poems she studies. Just as I did in April of this year (Working With Mentors Both Near and Far), I am publishing another of our exchanges for … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Indexing: Who Does It and How?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 2, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I’ve been to your web page and read: ABOUT INDEXES Sheila Before I met you this winter, Katherine, I had never spoken to an indexer, not even the ones some of my publishers employed to make the indexes for my books. All I knew was that libraries are more likely to purchase nonfiction books with … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Chapter 4 of Off Kilter by Linda Wisniewski

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 25, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This essay is excerpted from <em>Off-Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother and her Polish Heritage</em> with the author’s permission. It is my pleasure to offer you this sample of the book’s excellent essays — each one evokes the writer’s growing up clearly and vividly. Less than a mile into our school … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2009

An Interview with Linda C. Wisniewski

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 18, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This week we present an interview with author Linda C. Wisniewski. Her book Off Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother & Her Polish Heritage accomplishes what many of us wish to accomplish when we are writing personal essays. Reviewer Marc Schuster of Small Press Reviews explains it this way: Wisniewski conjures … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

“Walking to School” by Nancy Kane

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 11, 2009 by Nancy KaneOctober 17, 2011

“Walking to School” is an essay that is very close to being completely satisfying. I want to share the essay and the comments I sent Nancy in our recent No-Contest Contest to provide the experience of workshopping an essay using the three-step response method I advocate. I believe that as we become skilled at offering … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2009

Excerpt from Wounding’s Grace: Confessions of an Extraordinary Heart

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 4, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I am pleased to present the second place winner in our spring 2009 Writing It Real No-Contest Contest. Mary Oak has woven her childhood longings and adult experience into a rich tapestry in the service of informing many through her life review. As she writes in her bio information, after surviving a cardiac arrest in … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

The Hershey Bar Incident

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 28, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Kathy Krause’s personal essay “The Hershey Bar Incident” entertains as well as reminds readers of something very important–how many times as adults we make promises to children and then don’t come through, thus eroding the admiration the children have for us and leaving more hurt behind than we willingly acknowledge. Kathy’s well-drawn descriptions of what … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

What the Moment Can Hold

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 21, 2009 by Sheila BenderJanuary 7, 2015

The first time I hold my daughter’s daughter I feel so sad. I don’t remember feeling this when her sons were born. It is a strange feeling, the wrong emotion for this happy time, but I can’t help it. I’m remembering when the baby in my arms was my daughter, when it was all still … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Getting Started Writing Memoir

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 14, 2009 by Sheila BenderJanuary 7, 2015

Ever since I started writing in earnest and working with other writers, I’ve been curious about why one chooses fiction for one story and non-fiction for another. Most of what I write is drawn from personal experience so for me it’s pretty simple — some stories need to be served straight up. That’s non-fiction. Others … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

On Writing Early Readers

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 7, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Caroline Arnold has been a contributor to Writing It Real, and recently, she sent me an essay about how one of her early children’s books began as gardening observations with her children. We will be posting an excerpt from that book, Wiggle and Waggle, after our current exchange and refresher on the issues involved in … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

An Introduction that Puts Argument to Work

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 30, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

In this slightly abbreviated excerpt from another of author Elaine Partnow’s introductions, we see an argument at work that informs as it asks us to consider the absence of women from lists of notable playwrights.  Partnow has put her book together, she says, to “allow women playwrights throughout history to resurface, as well as to … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Words of Introduction Outline a Book

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 23, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Elaine Partnow wrote this introduction for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Your True Age, which she co-authored with her sister Judith Hyman, Ph.D. You will see the work a book’s introduction can do for managing readers’ expectations of how a book is ordered and how they will participate in learning. Youth is as much a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Elaine Partnow, Author, Actor, Playwright

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 16, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I started out in life as an actress. Around my 32nd year, I was depressed. I had been getting great reviews on my theater performances in LA, but I was not getting hired for films. I had little parts in big movies and big parts in little movies, but not the work for which I … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Creating Voice in Poetry and Prose

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 9, 2009 by Michael SowderDecember 5, 2011

Voice is one the most essential features of successful writing; if we fail to create an authentic, credible voice in our work, that work will fail — in spite of other virtues it may have. However, voice is often referred to as something elusive and indefinable. In their book, A Poet’s Companion, Kim Addonizio and … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2009

Working with Mentors, Both Near and Far

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 2, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This school term, I have been mentoring Kathy Lockwood, a student enrolled at Alaska Pacific University, where she is doing independent study in writing poetry. Very recently, she sent me an email with a letter attached describing her lack of writing at the moment and her deep disappointment with herself over her slow down. I … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Build Your Writing Life

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 26, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

When I think about how I began cultivating my writer’s life, I realize had been doing so even before I knew what I was doing. But once it began a more conscious process, about a year later, I became overwhelmed. I didn’t know writers’ jargon or the prerequisites for developing into an accomplished writer. I … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2009

Pep Talk and Tips on Submitting Screenplays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 19, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Chantelle Osman recently approached me about sharing information about her work as a screenwriter and producer with Writing It Real subscribers. Those of you interested in pursuing acceptance of screenplays for production will enjoy the hit of energy you’ll get from Chantelle’s energetic words. Her enthusiasm for the process and absolute trust in the ability … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

“The Blue Hornet” by Nicki Jack

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 12, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

It is with pleasure that we post our third place winner in Writing It Real’s 2008 No-Contest Contest. Nicki narrates a Christmas morning in a way that goes beyond Christmas memories. She does a fine job of helping us see life through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl with two brothers. Her use of setting … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

“White Bird Morning” by Mai Lon Gittelsohn, 2nd Place Winner Winter 2008

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 6, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

I enjoy “White Bird Morning” by Mai Lon Gittelsohn for many reasons. The poem situates me in the familiarity of an early Sunday morning and then takes a turn into territory that is new to me. It isn’t long before the rich detail informs me that the poem is about the circumstances of a particular … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

“The Legend of the White Zucchini,” An Essay by Mardi Link

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 26, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Mardi Link’s essay is a wonderful example of how narrating a story about a time you found something important to you allows you to weave themes of sadness and joy together into a full experience for the reader. The details in this essay, from the ones about the speaker’s sadness and lethargy following a divorce … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

The Conversation Itself

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 19, 2009 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

Jack Heffron is one of the most versatile writers I know. I’ve read his short fiction, creative nonfiction, books on writing, books that he has ghost written and books that he’s edited (including my own). Recently, I read some of his interviews and it brought up some questions that I wanted to ask him. Sheila … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

“Embarkation”: A Poem by Meg Files

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 12, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Embarkation by Meg Files The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.  –Marcel Proust We believe we are prepared for this trip: all-terrain shoes, tiny clotheslines, mesh-sided shirts, new underwear, Columbia shorts, everything cute enough for each other. At the Quito airport, the driver holds a sign–Sally … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2009

Sometimes Writing is a Matter of Memory and Resolve

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 5, 2009 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

How do writers decide what to write about? In “Death on a Quiet Street“, by Jack Heffron and John Boertlein, Cincinnati Magazine, April 2008, Jack Heffron writes: Last September, I was having dinner with my friend John Boertlein when the Bricca murders came up. John, who grew up in Delhi and has known about the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Confessions of a Writing Teacher

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 29, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

[This article first appeared in Lizard, Victoria University’s Professional Writing and editing program’s magazine. The University is in Melbourne, Australia where Meg Files did a Doris Leadbetter Teacher Exchange between Pima College and VU’s Diploma Professional Writing and Editing. –ed] Writing is a lonely business, Ernest Hemingway said in his 1954 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

A Personal Essay Waiting to Be Written

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 22, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Our new President is a writer, which focuses national attention on trusting in the power of words. It helps those of us who write from personal experience re-invest in the importance of what we do as we write, hoping to contribute our part in the song of human experience. Newly sworn in, President Obama ended … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2009

How to Overcome Writing Procrastination

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 15, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

This week I got a note from a student who said she was looking forward to taking my advice about writing more this year if she could only figure out how to stop working 60 hours a week. I had another student who took a month off work to write important application essays for graduate … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2009

An Essay and a Poem

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 8, 2009 by Sheila BenderOctober 17, 2011

Love And Hate On Night Watch By Katrina Hays Originally published in Sea Stories Journal, Winter 2008 Offshore sailors have ridiculous and sublime ways to spend their time. One of these exercises in necessity and boredom is the night watch. I both adore and despise night watch. There is no middle ground here. Being awake … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2009

Interview with Writer Katrina Hays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 1, 2009 by Katrina HaysOctober 23, 2011

I met Katrina Hays this past summer at Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers’ Writing Workshop’s (RWW) graduation day discussions and ceremony. I was there to talk about how students in the graduate low-residency writing program could choose to work on Writing It Real articles to meet a required “outside experience.” Last year, Tarn Wilson from … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2009

Interview with Margaret D. McGee

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 25, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Shortly after reading Margaret D. McGee’s gentle, focused book Sacred Attention: A Spiritual Practice for Finding God in the Moment, I emailed her with some questions about her writing and about publishing in the spiritual genre. She graciously wrote back, and here is the content of the emailed conversation that developed: Sheila I enjoyed the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

Finding the Sacred Through Careful Attention

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 18, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

When author Margaret D. McGee moved with her husband David into a house in the woods on the Olympic Peninsula, she started keeping a nature journal. As she formed the practice of writing short entries a few times a week, she realized that paying attention to nature outside her house was beginning to change her … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2008

A Writing Lesson from the Journaling Ideas of Author David Mas Masumoto

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 11, 2008 by Sheila BenderJune 11, 2014

This time of year we cope with a lot of activity. Social engagements and gift shopping, worrying about how to spread a gift buying budget around and the need to travel distances or entertain out-of-town family sweep away our writing time. Sometimes, our very sense of ourselves as writers disappears. Ironically, this very same time … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2008

Fallow Time

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 27, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

[From What I Thought I Knew, Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc., 2008] Faint light is leaking through the bedroom mini-blinds, but there’s no good reason to get out of bed. It’s late winter in Southern Indiana. The sodden ground is blotched with dirty patches of snow, and wilted lawns droop, defeated under ashen clouds that have hung … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

Interview with the Author of What I Thought I Knew

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 20, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

What I Thought I Knew is a gorgeous collection of life-, love- and spirit-affirming personal essays. In the preface to her book, Barbara Stahura says it this way: Sometimes, I wake up early in my grown-up bed, windows open around it, and hear the distant whistle of trains. It is then I remember that little … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

The Enneagram and Me: Writing Is My Spiritual Practice

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 13, 2008 by Sheila BenderJune 11, 2014

In 1988, while I was living in Berkeley with my husband Kurt, who was on a computer network assignment, I came across a book: The Enneagram: An Ancient system for Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life,by Helen Palmer. I couldn’t put the book down as I read descriptions of nine personality types and found … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2008

Buttons

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 6, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

In July, Nina Soifer sent three poems into the Writing It Real No-Contest Contest. I was very taken with “Buttons,” a poem that evokes specific childhood time the young poet spent with her grandmother: Buttons Sometimes when I look at my hands, the way the blue veins bulge and the knuckles protrude a little, I … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

An Escalating Din

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 30, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

[This week we present the second place winner in our first No-Contest Contest. The work Nicole Janeen Jones sent in moved me very much. Most of the essay was fluid and kept me engaged in the weightiness of Nicole’s subject and the urgency of her occasion. There were some places in the essay, however, that … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

A New Way to Publish

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 16, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This article appeared on May 26 2008 among the article archive on the valuable NAWW.org website. Having met Penny several years ago at the Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference, I already admired her energy and support for writers. Her information in this article is just as encouraging for those considering self-publishing as a way of finding … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2008

Making Historic Time Real

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 9, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Recently, I heard from author Linda Collison in response to a Writing It Real e-mailing. Linda and I had met years ago during a visit my husband and I made to the Big Island in Hawaii. She and her husband were friends of the couple who owned the bed and breakfast we stayed at. Linda … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2008

Why Do You Write? How Do You Write? – Part 2

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 2, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

After Rodney Merrill received my answers to his questions about writing and my motivation to write, he sent me an interesting letter about his writing process and his knowledge of what those who study writers say. And he asked me more questions. I tried my best to answer the new questions. It isn’t often that … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

Why Do You Write? How Do You Write?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 25, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Last fall, doctoral candidate Rodney Merrill sent me a questionnaire about my approach to writing. He was surveying many writers while researching for his dissertation in the area of social constructionist views on writing. I was very taken with his inquiry and ideas and answered the questions. Soon, I interviewed Rodney so Writing It Real … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

Glimmer Train Comes Through

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 18, 2008 by Sheila BenderJune 11, 2014

Earlier this year, I submitted a story to Glimmer Train, a fine literary magazine that boasts, “Each quarterly issue presents about 260 pages of literary fiction—eight to twelve brand new stories by luminaries and fresh new voices making their way into print. A feast of fiction!” My story wasn’t accepted, but receiving the editor’s copyrighted … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2008

Thoughts on How to Structure an Essay Collection

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 11, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

When Judith Kitchen, who is Assistant Program Director of Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop, suggested I might want to read a paper by graduating MFA student Hilary Schaper on organizing a collection of personal essays, I was delighted. I enjoyed reading the account of how Hilary studied the structure of such a collection. Believing … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

Three Waters for Success

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 4, 2008 by Sheila BenderJune 11, 2014

According to a Japanese Shinto tale, Enchin, a priest from Nara, was told in a vision to look for the clear water origin of the Yodo River. After a long search, he stumbled upon a place deep in a forest where mist, like a belt of white clouds, hung over a waterfall at the foot … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2008

Love Letters from a Fat Man by Naomi Benaron

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 28, 2008 by Sheila BenderJune 11, 2014

Author Stuart Dybeck was the final judge for the 2006 G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction. I imagine his delight when he read Naomi Benaron’s original and moving collection Love Letters from a Fat Man. How could he not have chosen the volume as the winning manuscript? From its title story, which comes first … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2008

Good Neighbors Bad Times by Mimi Schwartz

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 21, 2008 by Sheila BenderJune 11, 2014

When writer Mimi Schwartz hears a story during a trip to Israel that corroborates the one her late father used to tell, she is compelled to conduct an ambitious research project about her father’s birthplace, a village where, he said, Christians and Jews lived cooperatively for hundred of years, a village where Christians remained supportive … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2008

Today is Under Construction

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 14, 2008 by Sheila BenderJune 11, 2014

Built of timber over the years from 1601 to 1626 as a residence of the Tokugawa Shoguns, the Nijo Castle in Kyoto is preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage site. I walk in the July heat toward the building’s large winged roof with my daughter Emily, one of her graduate students Laurie, and my eldest … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2008

Collect Tidbits, Meditations and Musings

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 7, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 23, 2014

In this exercise, we are going to build an essay, piece of fiction or a poem with inspiration from fiction writers Ron Carlson and Lisa Shea and poet Bill Matthews. You’ll start, without knowing where this might lead, by imitating the style, grammar and strategies these writers used in the journal excerpts they contributed to … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2008

Sudden Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 31, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

One way to tackle subjects you may not feel up to handling is to learn from the strategies of writers who tell stories and/or evoke issues through the use of dialog alone. Their stories are often very short, striking the heart swiftly. The work does not require a lot of set up or description. Instead, … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2008

The Flower That Splits the Rock

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 24, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant by Emily Dickinson Tell all the truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind— Sometimes, we fear … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2008

An Interview with Nahid Rachlin, Part Two

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 17, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

[This week’s article continues the interview Sheila did with writer Nahid Rachlin for the May, 2008 AWP Chronicle. Part one Sheila What advice do you have for those writing from painful political and family backgrounds? Nahid My advice is that they should give themselves time to understand it all and not be in the state … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

An Interview with Nahid Rachlin

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 10, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This article originally appeared in the AWP Chronicle, May, 2008 Nahid Rachlin has published four novels, Jumping Over Fire, (City Lights), Foreigner (W.W. Norton), Married to a Stranger (E.P.Dutton), The Heart’s Desire (City Lights), and a collection of short stories, Veils (City Lights). Penguin published her memoir Persian Girls in Fall, 2006. Her individual short … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

In Our Hands by Arnold Arem, M.D.

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 26, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

“In 1833, British anatomist Sir Charles Bell published a book whose premise was that the very existence of the human hand proved the existence of God.” So opens Arnold (Arnie) Arem’s book In Our Hands: A Hand Surgeon’s Tales of the Body’s Most Exquisite Instrument; from the get-go, we understand that we are in the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2008

Writing Wisdom Gleaned from an Olympic Ski Coach

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 19, 2008 by Tarn WilsonJune 11, 2014

When my sister came to visit me this spring, she brought along her boss, Rob Roy, a former Olympic ski coach who lives in Bend, Oregon where he hikes, skis, and develops green building and affordable housing for seniors. I was curious about what he had learned about fostering athletic excellence. As he talked, I … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

Journaling Workshops for Parents

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 12, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

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 … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2008, Writing Makes a Difference

The Perfect Rock

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 5, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

“After Marisa’s first seizure, when the two of us were in the hospital, the nurse told me I was doing a great job, and that I was a wonderful mother.” I read the opening of Betsy MacWhinney’s essay and immediately worried about her daughter. However, as I read further through the essay, my feelings of … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

Grooming

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 29, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Mary Zelinka opens her essay “Grooming” with a statement that lets us know up front that she is going to tell us an emotional story: “I wanted to hate Papa Burke, but by then I loved him too much.” I do not yet know who Papa Burke is, or what his relationship is to the … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

Becoming a Woman of Color

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 22, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

“Becoming a Woman of Color” by Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor offers a satisfying and moving read. A lyric essay in structure, it is built in sections that each begin with a command: Imagine, Remember, Picture. The symmetry between beginning and ending the essay with the word imagine and the repeated commands of remember and picture sandwiched between … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

Using Journals in Nonfiction Writing: Three Excellent Examples

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 15, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Those of us committed to seeing personal experience in print often consider our journal entries a valuable source and form for literature. Usually, we are thinking of mining our own journals and compiling selected entries, but the three books I discuss this week show us how we might use other people’s journals in creating books. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2008

The Ungarnished Truth

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 8, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This week we are posting an excerpt from Ellie Mathews’ memoir The Ungarnished Truth. The excerpt is a kind of a how-to essay. Ellie details the winning recipe she entered into the 1998 Pillsbury Bake Off Contest, telling us how she came up with it and a little about her approach to cooking daily meals. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

An Interview with Jay Bates, Host of A River & Sound Review

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 1, 2008 by Jay BatesJune 11, 2014

This year, I have had the delightful experience of working with Tarn Wilson, who is finishing up her MFA this spring from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainer Writing Workshop. Writing It Real subscribers have already benefited from her article on keeping a travel journal; this week, we benefit from her program’s network as she interviews classmate … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2008

What Your Furniture Tells You

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 24, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

The following exercise presented by Writing It Real in Port Townsend Writer’s Conference faculty member Susan Rich is from a poetry-writing workshop she presented at our 2007 writers’ conference. We publish it this week as a finale to our celebration of National Poetry Month. We hope you’ll email us your results from this exercise and … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2008

Whit Press Founder Claudia Mauro Empowers Community Through the Literary Arts

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 17, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

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 … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2008, Writing Makes a Difference

Meg Files and the Poetry of Home

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 10, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This week, in honor of National Poetry Month, we are proud to share an article by Writing It Real in Port Townsend Writers’ Conference faculty member Meg Files I have lived in three countries, in eight states, in fifteen cities, and on one island. I have lived in nine apartments, one duplex, one condo, and … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2008

Get Your Writing Going this National Poetry Month

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 3, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

With poetry, we mourn the passage of time, celebrate connections, yell out at injustice, cry from the pain of unrequited love and exclaim our joy in love and gratitude.  Over the years, I have known I would start poems because of seeing the wet outline of my husband’s swimming trunks through his slacks as we … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2008

The Story of a Century in the Pacific Northwest

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 27, 2008 by Kit BakkeDecember 5, 2011

If you’ve been identified as the one in your family, neighborhood or group of colleagues who writes, you may find yourself called upon to create writing for projects you hadn’t imagined setting out to do. One such request could be to put together an oral history. This week, novelist and writer Kit Bakke shares her … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2008

An Interview with Kate Kelsall

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 20, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Although trained as a clinical social worker and as a Certified Public Accountant, Kate Kelsall is currently writing and speaking and inspiring many with her twice weekly blog. Kate has Parkinson’s disease (PD) and through her efforts, many others with the disease are finding support and activities and coming to understand how much they can … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2008, Writing Makes a Difference

Dotting the Dragon’s Eye

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 13, 2008 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

This week, Jack Heffron, writer, editor and faculty member for Writing It Real In Port Townsend’s annual late June writer’s conference, shares “Dot the Dragon’s Eye,” Chapter Seventeen in his instructional book The Writer’s Idea Workshop: How to make your good ideas great, Writer’s Digest Books, 2003. Whether you are writing fiction, creative nonfiction or … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

The Gestures I Remember Him By

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 6, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Winter is one of the birthday seasons in my family. Among those birthdays, my late father’s comes February 20 and then mine, March 6th. Growing up, I marveled about how both he and I were Pisces, when we seemed so different in our temperaments. Like many men of his era, Bert J. Lillian equated vulnerability … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

Learning the Art of Public Speaking Can Help Writers

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 28, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

People have told me that fear of public speaking ranks high among the biggest fears we have. I know from my experience as a poet and writer who has given and attended readers for almost 30 years, that reading our writing before others, whether as open mic participants, workshop members or featured readers, gives us … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2008

Mother’s Day

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 21, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Thelma Zirkelbach, who won an honorable mention in a previous Writing It Real personal essay contest, has a talent for evoking those she is close to. In this winning essay, she writes about her mother as she is today and as she was in the past, calling up a lasting evocation. More of my thoughts … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

An Algebra Problem

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 14, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Our second place winner this time around is from Lebanon. Her teacher at the Beirut Evangelical School for Girls & Boys submitted several of her students’ essays. I was delighted to have chosen Nour’s essay as a winner and especially delighted to have received this note from her in response to my email of congratulations: … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

Bad Dreams

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 7, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Our winning essay this winter is an account of events the year the author was 15. Her use of simple short sentences is especially effective for writing about childhood trauma and for reminding us about children’s disenfranchisement. More of my comments on how the author’s writing succeeds follow the essay. Roberta Taman notes that she … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2008

Writing Childhood’s Dark Side

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 31, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Writing It Real contributor Janice Eidus’ newest novel, The War of the Rosens, is the story of 10-year-old Emma Rosen, a thoughtful girl who is writing poetry amidst the anger, confusion and angst of her leftist and atheist father Leo, her subservient socialist mother Annette and lovelorn older sister May. Amidst May’s hateful ripping up … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2008

A Found Exercise

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 3, 2008 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

You may have read that since 1976, Lake Superior State University in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has published a yearly list of words/phrases to ban from the Queen’s English. This week, the school released words chosen from over 2000 nominations on the basis of misuse, overuse, or general uselessness in the committee’s eyes. The list’s publication … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2008

21 Free Gifts from the Virtual World

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 27, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

After all the gift giving, charitable donations and holiday trips away this time of year, you’ll find the free resources listed below particularly attractive. Each link has inspiration and information to help you fill the well of your creativity. Stock up and let the generosity of writers, editors and publishers help you make and keep … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2007

First You Have to Teach a Lesson

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 20, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

In How I Learned to Drive, Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the main character enters, stands center stage and addresses the audience. “Sometimes to tell a secret, you first have to teach a lesson,” she announces. The lesson the play uses as its central theme is one about driving–the connective tissue of the play is … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2007

Words for the Groups in Our Lives

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 6, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This past spring, writer Jody Bower created a testament to the close circle of friends she has shared her adult life with. In writing about them, for them and for herself, she evokes a kind of organism made of lives that look distinct but are of one piece, like a stand of Aspens. There are … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2007

First Words

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 29, 2007 by Brenda MillerDecember 2, 2011

Do you have a memory of an early piece of writing you did? A memory that has with it the feeling of enjoyment–that you really liked being able to articulate your experience and thoughts in words? I remember sitting down to my little desk in third grade to write the Chanukah scene for our class’ … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2007

2007 Bedell Nonfiction Now

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 22, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

On November 1-4, I attended the Bedell Nonfiction Now Conference at the University of Iowa. The conference’s mission is to explore the history, present, and future of nonfiction in its myriad forms, and, as you might expect, the conference was packed with excellent panels, speakers, and readings focused on personal experience writing. Thursday November 1, … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2007

Baking Powder Biscuits

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 15, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I thought Ma was my own birth mother until I was about twelve years old. And why wouldn’t I? When in one of her buoyant moods, she boasted that my good looks, smarts, generosity, even my willfulness were owing to her side of the family. When she said that, my heart raced and my face … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

Interview with Rodney L. Merrill

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 8, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Rodney L. Merrill contacted me for an interview about writing from personal experience. He explained that for his doctoral thesis, he is conducting a “research study on how skilled personal essay writers go about writing personal essays and how this process might be applied to improve the teaching of writing and writerly practice in the … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Writing With Sense of Place

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 1, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Writing that rivets its readers requires evocation of place, situation, and at least one person to inhabit the place and deal with the situation. This is true for all writing, even the most lyrical, imagistic or self-reflective. In her novel Veil of Roses, author Laura Fitzgerald makes use of opportunities to describe Tucson, AZ, where … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2007

Interview with Laura Fitzgerald

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 25, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Each year, I spend the month of February teaching writing in Tucson, AZ, and each year I learn about authors fostered by the ongoing program at Pima Community College. The following interview is with an author who credits the Wednesday night writing class she took at Pima while her kids were preschoolers for the start … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

A Writing Lesson from Morrie, Rilke, and Coleman Barks

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 18, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Years ago, I read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, a man who was Morrie Schwartz’ college student at Brandeis University. The narrative is about weekly visits to see his former professor, who is dying. What is so inspiring in this account is the teacher’s voice and thoughts as he prepares to die but must … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2007

Cider Mills and Burning Leaves

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 11, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

For many of us, fall brings leaves to rake and sometimes to burn. It brings memories of visiting cider mills and eating sweet doughnuts as we sipped fresh apple cider. This week, take a moment to describe fall days either from the past or from right now. Begin by listing images of the season in … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2007

Journaling Exercise to Get You Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 4, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I’ve been talking with parents these past few weeks about how their kids are doing with their return to school and all the newness: new teachers, new classrooms, new classmates, new textbooks, new notebooks, and new clubs to join. I know that when I am faced with so much new, I get especially concerned with … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2007

Poetry is a Chance to Live Without Looking Away

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 20, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I spent a lovely day this week reading three books of poems I’ve wanted to sit down with for some time: The Love Hunter and Other Poems by Meg Files, Boxing the Compass by Holly J. Hughes, and Small Knots, poems by Kelli Russell Agodon. Reading these three collections, one after the other, I understood … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2007

Creating A Lyric Essay Using the Interview Approach

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 13, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I spent my summer writing a book called Perfect Phrases for Writing the College Application Essay. My effort was to come up with sentences (sometimes questions, sometimes statements) to help those who have to write the application essay focus and draw specific details from their experience and then organize the details into compelling personal statements. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2007

Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me A Writer by Barbara Sjoholm

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 6, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Barbara Sjoholm‘s memoir in essays, Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me a Writer, Seal Press, 2006, evokes a 1970s-style Bohemian travel life and will arouse memories in many readers. Those who knew they wanted to write when they were young will remember the way they looked at the world, what they saw and felt. And … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2007

Floating Bridge Press: Poetry From the Upper Left Hand Corner

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 6, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This summer, Writing It Real in Port Townsend Writer’s Conference faculty member, Susan Rich suggested we do an article on Floating Bridge Press, a community-based nonprofit, of which she is a member, that has published 17 books of poetry and almost a decade’s worth of the annual poetry anthology Pontoon. I am pleased this week … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Out of the Trenches and Chasing Butterflies

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 30, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This week, Writing It Real presents the first place winner in our Spring Personal Essay Contest. Following the essay, Sheila has posted comments on what she admires in the way the essay works. Out of the Trenches and Chasing Butterflies By Perry Hessenauer Have you ever found yourself having an experience so painful to your … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

In Debt

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 23, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

We present “In Debt” by Marcia Wall, which took second place in Writing It Real’s Spring 2007 Personal Essay contest. Sheila’s comments about how and why the essay succeeds are printed following the essay. In Debt by Marcia Wall The woman sitting in front of me turned around to face me. Her uncombed hair, (an … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

Head Size 8

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 9, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

We present here the 3rd place essay from the Writing It Real Spring 07 Personal Essay contest. I have included some comments following Jan Henrikson’s winning essay. Head Size 8 by Jan Henrikson “Head, Size 8,” Tony said gravely as I stepped through the door of his apartment. He waved a tiny slip of paper … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

Trusting Scrappiness

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 2, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I have been reading Sebastian Matthews’ book, In My Father’s Footsteps: A Memoir, about growing up the son of the late poet William Matthews. I was fortunate to have William Matthews as my thesis advisor at the University of Washington. Years after my graduation from the program in creative writing, I edited a book about … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2007

Defining and Writing the Lyric Essay

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 26, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I spent my summer writing a book called Perfect Phrases for Writing the College Application Essay. My effort was to come up with sentences (sometimes questions, sometimes statements) to help those who have to write the application essay focus and draw specific details from their experience and then organize the details into compelling personal statements. … Continue reading →

To access this post, you must purchase Online Personal Essay Writing Workshop + Membership, Development and Line Editing + Membership, Yesim Cimcoz Where Story Begins + Membership, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 11:00AM, Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor – How Editing Helps You Find Your Way + Membership 2:00PM, Poetry Writing Workshop + Membership, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 2:00PM, In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You! + Membership 11:00 AM, Summer Reading Summer Writing Plus Membership, Write More Healthy Starts Plus Membership, You: Writing in the 2nd Person Online Workshop Plus Membership, Keep Goin’ On Your Writing over the Holidays Plus Membership, Writing for Young Readers Plus Membership, Introduction to Scrivener — Plus Membership, Writing Healthy Starts + Membership, Eight Half-Hour Consults + Membership, Befriending the Giant + Membership, Write! Write! Write! Writing Exercises for Writing Prose from Personal Experience + Membership, Phone Consult: 3750 Words or Six Poems + Membership, The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic + Membership, Four Half-Hour Consults + Membership or New! Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir.

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2007

Self-Publishing Books on Grief, Part Two

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 19, 2007 by Sheila BenderMarch 30, 2023

This week, as we continue our series of interviews with authors who have self-published, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam Turner about This Might Help, the book he and his wife Phyllis put together. Like author Janice Urie, who we interviewed last week, Sam and Phyllis have experience with the grief of losing a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Self-Publishing Books on Grief, Part One

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 12, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

There are a lot of small-world stories in the writing world. Here’s one of mine: In 2000, I was asked by Writer’s Digest Books to judge personal essays. From over 3500 essays, for first place, I chose an essay by Janice Urie about the death of her 13-year-old son, Sean. For me, Janice’s writing was … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Writing from the Experience of a Career that Stumbled

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 5, 2007 by Adina SaraDecember 11, 2011

This week, we have the second in our series of interviews with writers who have self-published. Each of these writers reports on the successful experience they have had. Adina Sara published her collection of poems and personal essays about being a legal secretary–her view into the work world and the world of those who work … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

On Self-publishing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 28, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This week we begin a series on self-publishing, the outgrowth of interviews I’ve been doing with authors who have taken a variety of routes toward self-publishing. Cindy La Ferle and other authors have shared details from their publishing experiences in interviews as well as excerpts from their books, both of which I will be publishing … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Starting with Pieces Yields a Whole

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 21, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Following my reading of and writing in response to Impassio Press’s anthology In Pieces, An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing, I began a book American philosopher Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything. The rich effects of reading each continue to bounce together in my mind. Wilber’s book offers a stirring discussion of the view that … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2007

On In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 14, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

What definitions, thoughts and dreams I’ve snagged from In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing, edited by Olivia Dresher for Impassio Press. In her introduction, Dresher, a fragmentary writing enthusiast, introduces fragmentary writing this way:  “lack of a traditional beginning or end. Instead, the two are merged into a brief and concentrated middle, “a short … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2007

Recognizing Fragmentary Writing as a Genre

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 7, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

  Sheila Olivia, I was introduced to your press when one of your authors, Sandi Sonnenfeld, asked me to write a blurb about her book, This Is How I Speak, which is a memoir in diary form. I have been intrigued ever since with your idea of committing your press to publishing what you call … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

An Excerpt from “Art is a Lie that Tells the Truth”

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 30, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Art is a lie that tells the truth. — Picasso A fantasy: I want to write A Diary of Lies. Actually, it’s already in my head, written in invisible ink. But I could just as easily call it A Diary of Imagination. It pretends to be real in order to express the full flavor of … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

An Interview with John Nemerovski

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 23, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

In this week’s article, we interview John Nemerovski, who writes about technological subjects for a non-technical audience. His online articles, and now podcasts, are filled with personal anecdotes, quirky observations and bits of his own life including activities with friends, family and his much-loved dog Butzie. John’s articles and reviews almost always take on aspects … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2007, Writing Makes a Difference

Research and Writers’ Advice Support Keeping a Journal

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 16, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Lifetime journal keeper Ruth Folit combined her passion for journal keeping with her technological experience to create LifeJournal, a software program to help those who journal using their keyboards and computers. It wasn’t too long before she decided to create what she calls flavors to the product. One of them is LifeJournal for Writers, for … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Perfect Phrases for Writing About a Significant Experience

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 9, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Writing about a significant experience or ethical dilemma: A part of our mind, the part that was trained in school, feels we should know what we have to say before we write it down. However, in writing the personal essay and poetry, we can’t know what we have to say; we must write in search … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2007

What Keeps Us Writing?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 2, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Most of us writers collect quotes from writers on writing. Whether we hang them above our desks, write them in journals, put them in our email signatures, or use them as epigraphs for our own writing, they remind us of what we find most important about writing and encourage us to keep on writing, even … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2007

Figuratively Speaking: A Perception of Resemblances

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 28, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Last week we discussed poems in Rebecca McClanahan’s impressive collection, Deep Light. This week, we hear from her as a skillful user of figurative language and enjoy the exceptional opportunity to learn how to stretch our metaphor making muscles. The following work is an abridged version of Chapter 5 from Word Painting: A Guide to … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2007

About the Three-Step Response

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 26, 2007 by Sheila BenderMay 6, 2013

Reprinted with permission of Writer’s Digest Books from Writing Personal Essays: How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page by Sheila Bender, Writer’s Digest Books, 1995 About The Three-Step Response To help the writer understand what kind of contact his or her writing makes, my responsibility as a reader of the work is to: … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2007

The Seed of the Human Heart: Writing Tanka

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 12, 2007 by Michael WelchSeptember 9, 2022

Editor’s Note — To read some of Michael Dylan Welch’s Tanka poetry, click here You’ve heard of haiku, but did you know that it’s a spring chicken compared with another genre of short Japanese poetry? The rich heritage of this poetry stretches back more than a thousand years longer than haiku. Indeed, the poetic grand … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Tanka by Michael Dylan Welch

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 12, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Editor’s Note — to learn more about Tanka poetry, click here to read Michael Dylan Welch’s accompanying article. Missing Poems this is but a moonless night, and my pillow has no tear stains— it is in the grocery aisle amid the frozen vegetables that I long for you my pen poised above the notepaper— no … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

Driving Robert Frost

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 5, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Being tall is not all bad. Sure your hit your head a lot, and people are always asking you to get something breakable down from high places or rescue a cat. But my height has served me well a time or two. Once, during my senior year at the University of Arizona, one of my … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

An Interview with Author and Law Professor Martha Grace Duncan

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 22, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I met Martha Grace Duncan and became aware of her work when she made a research trip to Seattle for a personal essay she was writing about her stepmother. When I first learned she’d come to research for a personal essay, I immediately admired her commitment– many people believe only novels and other book length … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

So Have I Been A Good Stepmother?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 15, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This week, we begin a series about the work of writer and Emory University law professor Martha Grace Duncan. In her essay and book writing, Martha combines her passions for law, teaching, and memoir. This memoir originally appeared in The Gettysburg Review, 19:3, Autumn, 2006. So Have I Been a Good Stepmother? By Martha Grace … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

Partners

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 8, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

“Partners” by B. Lynn Goodwin was one of ten honorable mentions in this year’s inaugural Writing It Real Personal Essay Contest. The essay is followed by response comments Sheila sent to the essay’s author, as promised for all ten honorable mentions. Partners By B. Lynn Goodwin I was in my twenties when I told my … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

The Same Hospital at the Same Time

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 1, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This excerpt from Allison Gilbert’s Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents (Seal Press, 2006) is reprinted with the permission of the author. Please click here to read Sheila’s interview with her. In this excerpt, Gilbert writes from her interview with Dennis Franz. You ONLY GET one set of … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

Interview with Author and Editor Allison Gilbert

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 22, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Always Too Soon: Voices of Support For Those Who Have Lost Both Parents is a collection of intimate interviews about the journey traveled by those whose parents have both died. Some of the book’s contributors are famous (Rosanne Cash, Ice-T, Geraldine Ferraro, Mariel Hemingway) and others are not, but all have important perceptions to share … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

“Heat” – Riley Ellen Martin’s Third Place Winning Essay”

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 15, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Following this prize-winning essay, Sheila discusses the author’s way of putting description, metaphor making, example, comparison and contrast and cause and effect to good use in developing a humorous essay that clearly defines the experience of menopause and the mental and emotional states it encompasses. Heat by Riley Ellen Martin The open window brings the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

A Dime in My Pocket: A Memoir

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 8, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Following this prize-winning essay, Sheila discusses the author’s craft and technique for creating an essay that uses imagery and details to work toward a felt understanding. A Dime in My Pocket By Kelly Sievers I scooted a chair close to my father’s bed, pulled the side rail down, and released his hands from restraints. In … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

“I Do, Undone” – Catha J. Loomis 1st Place Essay

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 1, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Following this prize-winning essay, Sheila discusses the author’s craft and technique for creating a successful personal opinion essay. I Do, Undone by Catha J. Loomis Shocked by a message on the answering machine, I dashed upstairs and turned on the computer, hoping for some online confirmation. “Oh my God,” I yelled. “It’s true!” “It” was … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2007

Linguistics, Anybody?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 25, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Writers are tuned into the language that people use. Most of us feel that the everyday language of the people we listen to is rich and colorful and important, even if it doesn’t stick to what our teachers taught us.  Luckily, linguists are on our side with their delight in documenting how living languages evolve. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2007

Putting Life Experience on the Page

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 11, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I’m reading over 70 personal essays about rich human experience. The essays that came to us as entries in our contest are having a great impact on me. As I read, I move among countries, among ages, among decades and among social groups. I learn about topics new to me and revisit familiar ones with … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2007

As the Dark Days Move into Light

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 3, 2007 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

In October, my publisher’s essay spoke about the way I wrote and read poetry to help me after losing my 25-year-old son Seth in a snowboarding accident on December 27, 2000: When I finished one particular poem, I saw that not only did I hurt from profound helplessness to keep Seth from dying, I also … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2007

Celebrating Lyric Poetry

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 28, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Stan Sanvel Rubin’s third collection of poems, Hidden Sequel, the winner of the 2006 Barrow Street Poetry Prize, contains this opening epigraph: No, my heart is not sleeping, It is awake. Awake.” –Machado Right from the start, in the beat between two awakes, we are roused as if by a hypnotist who is letting us … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

LiveJournal Blogging

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 21, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

My daughter Emily is a Computational Linguistics Professor. One thing this means is that she spends a lot of time on the computer. She has found a way to keep a diary about her two little boys and the life of her young family using blogging software available free on the Internet. She’s given her … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2006, Writing Makes a Difference

Sailing the High Seas of the Publishing World

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 14, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Caroline Arnold graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa where she majored in art. After graduate school at the University of Iowa, she worked as an artist and art teacher for a number of years. Her writing career began in the late winter of 1976. She was living in an old farmhouse in upstate New York. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Community and the Work of the Poet

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 7, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

At this past summer’s Writing It Real in Port Townsend writer’s conference, Susan Rich spoke to the conference group about building a writer’s community and finding a place in the world based on one’s passion for poetry. This week, I’ve interviewed her about the development of her books of poems and the ways in which … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

On Cures Include Travel, Poems by Susan Rich

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 30, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Susan Rich taught for the Writing It Real in Port Townsend’s summer writing conference last June. At the conference, she read from the poems that were soon to be published by White Pine Press in the volume entitled Cures Include Travel as well as those in her previous, The Cartographer’s Tongue. She introduced attendees to … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2006

On Lurches and Launches: Narrative of a Book Launch

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 24, 2006 by Kit BakkeDecember 5, 2011

Everyone wants to help. Everyone has advice. My audiences split along the divide of wanting to know more about Louisa May Alcott, wanting to know more about me or wanting to know more about the genesis of the book (that’s what I get for inventing a new genre, the “bio-memoir”). Some people also feel compelled … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2006

Getting Around Concord

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 17, 2006 by Kit BakkeOctober 19, 2013

From Miss Alcott’s E-mail: Yours for Reforms of All Kinds by Kit Bakke. Reprinted by permission of David R. Godine, Publisher Copyright 2006 by Kit Bakke It was a wild, windy day, very like me in its fitful changes of sunshine and shade. — Louisa May Alcott, 1865, age thirty-three December 14, 2005 Dear Miss … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

Miss Alcott’s Email: Yours for Reforms of All Kinds by Kit Bakke

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 10, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Miss Alcott’s Email: Yours for Reforms of All Kinds is a remarkable memoir by Kit Bakke about a political activist, mother, nurse and management consultant’s midlife review interwoven with a biography of her political and literary soul mate Louisa May Alcott. From the start of the author’s introduction, I knew that reading the book would … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2006

Dealing with Toxic Feedback

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 3, 2006 by Joni ColeDecember 5, 2011

Last week, we shared a chapter from Joni Cole’s book, Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, published in 2006 by University Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire. This week, I talk with Joni about writing the book. Sheila Joni, I have read Toxic Feedback with great interest. You have written an informative and … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Getting Feedback – Twenty-Two Years

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 26, 2006 by Joni ColeDecember 5, 2011

Reprinted with permission of the author from Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, University of New England, 2006 Chapter Two: Getting Feedback — Twenty-Two Years By Joni Cole One time I went with a friend of a friend to lunch, my treat, so I could pick his brain about feedback. This man was a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

The Pocket Poetry Parenting Guide

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 19, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Last March, I attended the annual National Association of Poetry Therapists conference in Boston. Browsing the vendor tables, I discovered Jennifer Bosveld’s offering, The Pocket Poetry Parenting Guide. It presents a short but impressive collection of poetry for use in helping parents with the most important and perhaps hardest job of their lives. The collection’s … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2006, Writing Makes a Difference

Thoughts Upon the Birthday of My Son Seth, 1975-2000

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 12, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

My son Seth Bender, to whom Writing It Real is dedicated, would have turned 31 this October 1. He died in a snowboarding accident December 27, 2000, the year he was 25. In the months following the tragedy, the only connection I could feel strongly was to the sun. Certainly, it could have been because … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2006

Making Metaphor Run Deep

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 5, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Writing from our experience gives us the opportunity to know more after the writing than we knew in the experiencing alone. When we can combine our experiencing of outer events with our experiencing of inner events, using the outer as metaphor for the inner, we craft new tools for illuminating ourselves. Each of the tools … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2006

Decoys

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 28, 2006 by Brenda MillerDecember 2, 2011

This week, we offer a third essay by Brenda Miller, in which she skillfully uses an chance meeting to draw a metaphor that allows her to more deeply reflect upon herself as a writer. Again, the weaving of the outer world with the inner world yields a rich essay and a transformative experience. The other … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

On Thermostats

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 21, 2006 by Brenda MillerDecember 2, 2011

Last week, we posted Brenda Miller’s essay about how making metaphor both removes us from the moment we are in and sets us more deeply into meditation, helping us know ourselves and our inner worlds. In “On Thermostats,” she once again weaves the outer world of a writing retreat with her inner world as a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

The Case Against Metaphor: An Apologia

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 14, 2006 by Brenda MillerDecember 2, 2011

“Writing it all down,” is the phrase that ends Brenda Miller’s essay. That’s what we strive to do as writers. It is an ambitious striving, a striving that forces us to question our experiences and ourselves–can we possibly write it all down? Can we possibly get it down right? What would it feel like if … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

Teens Have Gifts to Offer

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 7, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

A few months ago, I received an email request to help spread the word about Scrap Paper Press’s worldwide call for creative writing submissions from teens. I went to the project’s website, was impressed with the effort, and posted the submissions-wanted information on the Writing It Real community page. I also enthusiastically emailed my teacher … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Take Some Time for Playful Journaling, Part II

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 31, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

In a journal, writers write without knowing where their writing is going. They unload thoughts, explore obsessions, record insights and observations, and sometimes imitate other writers, noticing how their perceptions come across in the voice and sentence structures of those writers they admire. Sometimes they address their writing to others with whom they feel resonance … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2006

Take Some Time for Playful Journaling

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 24, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

As a writer, I use my journal to both play with strategies I pick up from other writers’ work and test strategies I invent. In combination with observing the “show don’t tell rule” (use imagery and detail that appeal to the senses rather than intangibles that tell the reader how to feel — i.e. “the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2006

Digesting World News August, 2006

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 17, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Every time I open Yahoo on my computer, I look at the upper right-hand corner of the screen to type in what I am searching for and avoid looking at the left-hand area with its news images of death and destruction. When I listen to radio news or watch news on television, I feel too … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2006

Keeping Your Computer Organized

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 10, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

A month ago, when I asked Writing It Real subscribers if they would like an article on technical computer issues writers face, there was a big response. Almost all the comments were about hard drive organization: Any tips you can give, sequentially and logically, to organize my hard drive would indebt me to you forever. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2006

The Limits of Skepticism

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 3, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

describes a time of not writing but enjoying the garden of a rented London apartment.  Her husband thinks she is avoiding her writing, but actually she is cultivating it. Sometimes writing is allowing the senses in without direction. In the garden, specific blossoms stir specific memories of her mother. Weimer sits and plants and remembers. … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

Interview with Joan Weimer

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 27, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Joan Weimer’s second memoir, Awestruck: A Skeptic’s Pilgrimage, just out this year, opens with a dramatic prologue: The plane is so near the ground I can make out individual palm trees, their fronds whipped into a frenzy by a tremendous wind. Wet red tiles on the roofs are close enough to count. Abruptly the left … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Getting to the Details

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 20, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work with people in developing their essays. Writing It Real subscriber Beth Einstein entered our spring essay contest and recently took me up on my offer to work with her essay for a Revision Diary article. I thank Beth for her continuing work on her entry (the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2006

Overcoming Writing Inertia

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 13, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Recently, I read Writing Brave & Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing by Steve Cox and Ted Kooser to learn how they encourage others who want to write. As always with books on writing, I am on the look out for sparks that ignite the exercise-making part of my brain.  In … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2006

You are My Heroes

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 6, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

It isn’t an easy path to write from personal experience. There are no guarantees that editors will want to publish what we have to say and no guarantees that we will successfully find a way to say it, publication or not.  What is guaranteed is that committing words to the page and revising our writing … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing, WIR2006

The Freelance Writer’s Bible by David Trottier

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 29, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

A lot of books claim they can help authors who are in a hurry to get paid for their writing. This one is enthusiastically subtitled Your Guide to a Profitable Writing Career Within One Year, and it certainly does include supportive, direct information a freelancer needs to achieve such a goal. Author David Trottier has … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

On Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 22, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

In their book, Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction, writers and writing professors Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz offer a straightforward, encouraging look at how any of us can write our own moving and insightful accounts of life experiences. In addition, they include an anthology of creative nonfiction and offer tips on … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2006

It’s a Short Trip to Guilderland

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 15, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Most of the time, I am one of the most annoyingly politically correct people I know. I am so PC that even the word “tolerance” strikes me as a tad intolerant. But there is one minority group I can’t stand, and I make no apologies for it: I cannot abide Guilders. Don’t bother checking your … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

The House of the Seven Gambles – Revised

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 8, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

When I judged Mary Ann Payne’s essay submitted for Writing It Real’s first 2006 personal essay contest as our runner up, I wrote to her with comments about her ending and ideas for strengthening it.   Here is the essay she submitted followed by those comments and Mary Anne’s revision: The House of Seven Gambles By … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2006

Alan Should Have Rented a Car

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 1, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This essay is reprinted here from Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed by Mimi Schwartz by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2002 by Mimi Schwartz. Available wherever books are sold or from the University of Nebraska Press, 800.526.2617 and on the web at nebraskapress.unl.edu. No further use may be made of these materials … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

Writing About Family: Is It Worth It?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 25, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This article originally appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, October/November 2001 I made up my mind at the beginning of my writing life not to write about my family and friends, since I want them to remain my family and friends. –Novelist Carol Shields Write what you know!” is the advice given freely to writers not … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Q & A with Memoirist Mimi Schwartz

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 18, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This week’s article begins with an excerpt from Mimi Schwartz’s memoir, Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed. Entitled “Jimmy and June, ” this second essay in the collection illustrates the way Mimi Schwartz writes about ordinary life to “get it just right,” a phrase her husband used describing his reaction when he first read it at … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

An Interview with Sondra Perl Followed by an Exercise for Memoir Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 11, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Sheila Last week, in Writing It Real, I shared a section of your memoir, On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate with readers. I think the section we posted demonstrates the way your memoir developed from a turning point in your relationship to the teachers with whom you were working. I’d like … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Excerpt from On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 4, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

The following is excerpted with Sondra Perl’s permission from Chapter 2, “History Becomes Real”, of her memoir, On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate, published in 2005 by State University of New York Press, Albany, NY. Writing It Real reviewed Sondra’s first book about writing, Felt Sense: Writing With The Body, December … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, WIR2006, Writing Makes a Difference

On Deep Light, New and Selected Poems 1987 – 2007 by Rebecca McClanahan

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 20, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Already familiar with Rebecca McClanahan’s essays about her family from her book Riddle Song (as well as her other Writing It Real articles), I was delighted when I found that a new and selected volume of her poems was coming this year. I feel moved every time I read one of the volume’s 91 poems, … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2006

Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 20, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

I’ve been teaching poetry writing since 1981, when I began working on my Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Washington. As a teacher, I have continually applied all that I learned through trial and error creating and revising my own work and all that I learned in the company of the many great … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2006

Becoming a Haiku Poet

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 13, 2006 by Michael WelchMarch 26, 2014

Last week, you read Michael Welch’s instruction on writing haiku. This week you’ll learn more about haiku and publishing from a transcript of my email interview with him. It includes the treat of some of Michael’s poems at the end as well as links to more of his writing and several sites of interest. Sheila … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006, WIR2014

Lasting: Poems on Aging, Edited by Meg Files

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 6, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Which of us has not looked intently at the markings of age in others and then looked for those markings in ourselves? Which of us doesn’t hope for some wisdom to come along with the signs of aging? Which of us doesn’t hope it all means something? Finally, we have a volume of poems on … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2006

Keeping a Writer’s Journal

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 30, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Writers write. A journal is way to do that, without knowing where you are going with the writing, to unload thoughts, obsessions, insights and observations, and sometimes to imitate other writers, seeing how your perceptions might come across in the voice and sentence structures of those they admire. Sometimes you can imagine your writing addressed … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2006

27 More Tips for Writers (76-102)

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 23, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

If you don’t know how to start a piece of writing about a person, try remembering something that person believed. Write that belief out and attribute it to the person. What can you write that bounces off of those words? (You can do this when you have a non-personal subject, too, by starting with a … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2006

A Personal Essay and a Contest It Inspires

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 16, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

This week’s article is an essay by one of our treasured correspondents with a contest announcement for Writing It Real subscribers inspired by the essay. Janice Eidus’ essay was to have appeared in an anthology that explored the theme and experience of being Jewish edited by the great comic Alan King, but when he died … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing, WIR2006

Four Writers on Writing, Part 2

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 9, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

We pick up where the email thread left off last week. Sheila starts: I wanted to respond to what Lisa said: “And I wanted to raise this idea about how writing has repercussions that go far beyond whether you are published or not,” What we spend our days writing affects us in many ways. If … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Four Writers on Writing, Publishing and How Their Careers Are Shaping Up

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 2, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

In the fall, I consulted with freelance, technical and creative writer, Michelle Goodman about publishing with regional presses. By way of thank you, she arranged for two other writers to join her in an email conversation with me about themselves, their writing, and their publishing. We all benefited from the conversation, and I share it … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Writing from Anticipation

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 20, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Here in the Northwest, despite the unusually cold temperatures we recently experienced, daffodils, crocuses and blossoming fruit trees add yellow, purple and pink to our current landscape. And under a week of consistently sunny skies, we find ourselves anticipating spring. We wake to light and prepare dinner before dark. The winter season’s short daylight slowed … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises, WIR2006

25 More Tips for Writers (51-75)

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 16, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Always take some time to read what you are writing aloud after you have finished a draft. Note the places that are hard to say or seem to go flat or inspire you. Try taking out the flat spots, extending the inspired spots and rewriting the hard-to-say-out-loud spots– the difficult places often require more or … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer, WIR2006

SELF-Esteem and the SELF-Published Author

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 9, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Hannah Goodman is the author of My Sister’s Wedding, a young adult novel that addresses the effects of alcoholism on individuals, friends and families. She self-published it in 2004 (a sample chapter appears in the WIR Gallery) and now often presents lectures on self-publishing and shares the steps involved, the pitfalls and how to avoid … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Fatherhats

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 2, 2006 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

After reading Jack’s instruction last week about narrating a day in your life to find material, you will be interested in looking into this story to find the quantity of details that come from such close observation, from the way one of the characters tugs at his beard and the other covers his ears and … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Literary Gallery, WIR2006

A Day in the Life of a Writer

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 26, 2006 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

Jack Heffron’s simple, masterful writing prompt will have you realizing how much content you have to write about in no time–well, in the time it takes to live a day and read the notes you put on paper. Taking notes in the way Jack suggests plus the bit of Fitzgerald he includes to show you … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Relying on the Lyric

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 19, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

On July 8, 2004, I posted an instructional exercise article, “Put Summer on the Page,” encouraging writers to use the opening of Ray Bradbury’s novel Dandelion Wine for inspiration in writing their own memories. Recently, I worked with Michelle Vanstrom on the writing she created from the exercise, which yielded a moving eulogy to her … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes, WIR2006

Poems, Pastries and Politics

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 12, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Why connect the writing of poetry with an appreciation of good food? On first consideration, the juxtaposition of poems and pastries might seem frivolous. Isn’t poetry sustenance for something more than the physical body? Recently, I taught a workshop at a local college advertised as “O Taste and Write: Food Poems,” and perhaps a subtext … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Ten Signs of a Scam Book Doctor

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 5, 2006 by Sheila BenderOctober 31, 2011

Long time professional editor, Jerry Gross developed a widely used code of ethics for editors and book doctors. Here are his 10 points to consider when evaluating someone to work with you on your manuscript. Ten Signs Of A Scam Book Doctor by Jerry Gross Working with an expert, ethical book doctor can often make … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Working with a Free-Lance Editor or Book Doctor

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 29, 2005 by Jerry GrossSeptember 24, 2011

 The following essay is one of a collection of 39 essays by distinguished editors about the practical and theoretical aspects of publishing that appear in Editors on Editing:  What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, edited by Jerry Gross, Grove/Atlantic, 1993.  It is reprinted with permission of the author. When should a writer … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, The Working Writer

Fiction Inspiration from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 22, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 25, 2011

We’ve seen movie versions, television versions, and stage adaptations of Dickens’s famous story. We have had the story read to us and in turn have read it to others.  Like people all over the world, we have been haunted by the mean, miserly character of Ebenezer Scrooge, which makes us think, amidst the gifts and … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing

Writing is Like Junking

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 15, 2005 by Sheila BenderOctober 26, 2011

During the winter holidays and New Year’s season, I usually search my files for writing I’ve done on previous holiday seasons, just to see what I was thinking in other years. Looking through my files this past week, I became interested in writing I did a decade ago, when I was exchanging letters with Christi … Continue reading →

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Teachings from Felt Sense: Writing with the Body by Sondra Perl

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 8, 2005 by Sheila BenderOctober 30, 2011

Last March, I met Sondra Perl at the National Council of Teachers of English‘s Conference on College Composition and Communication in San Francisco. We talked about her book Felt Sense: Writing with the Body and I recognized the aspects of writing that she was addressing. I took my copy of the book home and excitedly … Continue reading →

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Secrets to the Success of Motivational Speakers Might Help Us Succeed as Writers

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 1, 2005 by Francine SilvermanSeptember 24, 2011

Writing in BOOK PROMOTION newsletter, Francine shares the following quotes and biographical information about four dynamic motivational speakers and book authors: “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) “You become what you think about.” Earl Nightingale (1921-1989) “You can have everything in life that you want if you will … Continue reading →

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Since that First Night of Lit Halls

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 16, 2005 by Tamara SellmanSeptember 24, 2011

As you read this short story by magical realism enthusiast Tamara Sellman, pay attention to the ways in which the omniscient third person narrator reports the main character’s thoughts and ideas.  Techniques of magical realism allow readers to understand and accept the mother’s way of understanding what is happening. With this acceptance comes an ability … Continue reading →

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Finding a Voice for This

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 10, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 24, 2011

We come to journaling to record what we are doing and what we are thinking. As a writing teacher, I spend a lot of time onsite teaching and even more off-site creating lessons. When I was journaling about my son’s death, it is not surprising that I recorded the teaching part of my life as … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises

Magical Realism at Your Finger Tips

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 3, 2005 by Tamara SellmanOctober 26, 2011

When he was a boy she was always painting the ceiling of his room. Once she painted it blue for a sky with lazy white clouds and faint daytime stars. And in one corner, as if just disappearing into his closet, the tip of an angel’s wing. “It could be only a bird’s wing,” she … Continue reading →

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Explosions and Recapitulations

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 27, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 24, 2011

Viewing poetry as a gift, Edward Hirsch writes in his book “How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry:  “The question poses itself as how to keep alive an interior life in the face of our own and the world’s corruptions.” As an example of a solution, he presents Charles Baudelaire‘s prose … Continue reading →

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Writing for the Holidays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 20, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 25, 2011

Yesterday, I saw a sign in a shop announcing Halloween items were now half off. I was shocked to realize that Halloween was now close enough for merchants to start reducing their inventory. They’d started selling Halloween goodies in August, and that feeling that there was lots of time before October 31 was still with … Continue reading →

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Book Packagaing: Under-Explored Terrain for Book Free-Lancers

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 13, 2005 by Jenna GlatzerSeptember 25, 2011

This article was originally published by Writer’s Digest Magazine.  Reprinted here with the permission of the author. I’m willing to bet my favorite pen that most people who are reading this have no idea what a book packager is. Until I worked for one, I didn’t know they existed, either. Book packaging is a quiet … Continue reading →

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Writing is a Wave in the Mind

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 6, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 25, 2011

I am a young schoolgirl watching the early dark fill my bedroom windows. I sit at a small drop leaf desk doing vocabulary homework, folding paper long ways in half and writing the date in whichever upper corner the teacher has asked me to. By now I’ve heard stories about Plato and Socrates. Thinking about … Continue reading →

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Writing, Reading, and Revising: Soul Work

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 29, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 25, 2011

Before I started studying poetry writing, I littered my work with the word soul. What was poetry but the soul making itself known?  How else to talk when making an exploration of emotions but to use the word?  John Donne, who I had studied in college, did: Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though … Continue reading →

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Creating Rich Scenes Like the Pros

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 22, 2005 by Sheila BenderOctober 26, 2011

In the conversation we posted last week between Kaylie Jones and Beverly Donofrio, you read about what these two authors think about the similarities and differences between memoir and fiction. Kaylie Jones states: “…memoir becomes an exploration of the author’s life choices” and “In memoir, the writer is allowed to draw conclusions for us.” In … Continue reading →

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A Conversation Between Memoirist Beverly Donofrio and Novelist Kaylie Jones

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 15, 2005 by Kaylie JonesSeptember 25, 2011

In February 2005, old friends, novelist Kaylie Jones and memoirist Beverly Donofrio reunited to teach together in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In the months before the workshops, they conversed with one another about their respective genres and the experience of having movies made of their books. The following is the transcript of that conversation … Continue reading →

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A Note to Students of Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 8, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 25, 2011

I once created a daily writing exercise for myself by opening the dictionary to random pages and, eyes closed, circling my finger until it landed on a word.  “This is something like throwing the I Ching,” I thought.  I read the definitions of the words my fingers landed on and wrote the words at the … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing

Grace Jackson Creates a Community of Voices

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 1, 2005 by Grace JacksonOctober 30, 2011

In 2002, Grace Jackson wanted to start a community-based literary magazine filled with the voices of her women neighbors on Bainbridge Island, WA. To find her contributors, she distributed a flier at coffee houses, bookstores and libraries near her home. The flier asked women to: Tell me where you are in the world right now. … Continue reading →

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An Interview with Young Adult Novelist Hannah R. Goodman

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 18, 2005 by Hannah R. GoodmanSeptember 25, 2011

Earlier this year, Hannah R. Goodman emailed me about her book, My Sister’s Wedding, a young adult novel she published in 2004 that addresses the effects of alcoholism on individuals, friends and families and asked me if I would like a copy. The topic was on my mind as I had only recently spoken to … Continue reading →

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Excerpts from My Sisters Wedding by Hannah Goodman

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 11, 2005 by Hannah R. GoodmanSeptember 25, 2011

My Sister’s Wedding by Hannah Goodman (iUniverse, 2004) is a young adult novel that addresses alcoholism among family members and high school students from the point of view of a younger sibling who realizes her family is denying her older sister’s alcohol abuse and she is doing the same thing in a relationship with a … Continue reading →

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25 More Tips for Writers (26-50)

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 11, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

To write a good character, you have to imagine that you live in the character’s body and listen for his or her inner voice. Ask the character you are inventing what secret he or she most wants to keep.  Decide if the story you write will reveal that secret or just inform the characters gestures, … Continue reading →

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Why You Get Form Rejection Letters

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 28, 2005 by Jenna GlatzerSeptember 26, 2011

At every conference I teach, participants commiserate about rejection notices– not only about getting them but about the insulting nature of their standardized messages. Occasionally, someone has a story of a personalized rejection or of actually having received suggestions from an editor on the rejection slip. Usually, though, the talk ends the same way–wall paper … Continue reading →

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Near the Light

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 20, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

We benefit from writing about how something important to us became a passion. Reliving the decisions leading up to reshaping our lives around our passions and reflecting on how our efforts changed us, we learn more about our journeys.  When we read accounts of others following their dreams, we experience the exhilaration of overcoming obstacles … Continue reading →

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Describing How We Behave When Life Deals a Blow

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 14, 2005 by Steven WinnOctober 26, 2011

Steven Winn, columnist and critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and past contributor to Writing It Real, tells a good story about a series of articles he wrote that were extremely popular. He was eating lunch with one of his newspaper’s editors and telling her about Como, the one-year-old rescue dog his family had adopted, … Continue reading →

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For YOUR Eyes Only

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 7, 2005 by Joanne RocklinSeptember 26, 2011

Joanne Rocklin’s young adult novel, For YOUR Eyes Only is in the form of a young teen’s notebook. You can read an excerpt at Amazon.com to see how effectively the writing strategy evokes the main character and the world in which she is immersed. Writing for the Children’s Book Insider, Joanne Rocklin provided tips for … Continue reading →

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Making a Daybook into Creative Non-Fiction

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 30, 2005 by Sarah DickersonSeptember 26, 2011

In March, 2005, Sarah Dickerson and I were on a panel along with Boise State University’s Karen Uehling and San Francisco writer Steven Winn in which we addressed attendees at the National Council of Teachers of English’s Conference on College Composition and Communication about using journaling in the classroom. I asked Sarah if she would … Continue reading →

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Try Your Hand at Writing a Prose Poem

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 23, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

Beggar Woman of Naples by Max Jacob When I lived in Naples there was always a beggar woman at the gate of my palace, to whom I would toss some coins before climbing into my carriage. One day, surprised at never being thanked, I looked at the beggar woman. Now, as I looked at her, … Continue reading →

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Truth & Beauty: Ann Patchett’s memoir about her friendship with Lucy Grealy

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 16, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

Lucy Grealy, author of Autobiography of a Face, and five-time novelist Ann Patchett were acquaintances at Sarah Lawrence, where Lucy was legendary as a poet and inspired her classmates with her courage in facing and healing from constant surgeries to restore her face, scared and disfigured from cancer surgery when she was nine. When they … Continue reading →

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Finding a Voice for This

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 9, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

We come to journaling to record what we are doing and what we are thinking. As a writing teacher, I spend a lot of time onsite teaching and even more off-site creating lessons. When I was journaling about my son’s death, it is not surprising that I recorded the teaching part of my life as … Continue reading →

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Keeping a Family Journal

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 26, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

School is almost out and the lazy days of summer are right around the corner. Well, the days we experienced as lazy when we were kids, anyway, because for a few months our schedules were more open. Some of us may be anticipating the time our children will have on their hands and others may … Continue reading →

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An Interview with Jack Heffron

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 19, 2005 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

Jack Heffron was my editor at Writer’s Digest Books for almost a decade, and we have been teaching colleagues for going on six years now.I still have the editorial letter he wrote to me after he’d read Writing Personal Essays:How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page, my second book on writing and the … Continue reading →

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The Flowering of Rabbit Hash

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 12, 2005 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

Writing It Real is happy to post an article this week by editor and creative fiction writer Jack Heffron. “The Flowering of Rabbit Hash” originally appeared this fall in Cincinnati Magazine.  Jack lives in Cincinnati where he works with Emmis Books.  As a fiction and creative fiction writer, Jack was hooked on an article idea … Continue reading →

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On The Cartographer’s Tongue: Poems of the World by Susan Rich

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 28, 2005 by Sheila BenderOctober 30, 2011

From The Cartographer’s Tongue: Poems of the World Leaving Sarajevo by Susan Rich The bus driver stops to pick plums from an abandoned late summer garden, the pale blue carrier bags pulled from his bed where he sleeps underneath the bus. All night we watch movies, drink beer in the dark, cross borders where Bosnians, … Continue reading →

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It’s Not How You Write, It’s How You Re-Write

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 21, 2005 by Susan RichSeptember 26, 2011

This week we are very lucky to have an article about revision by poet Susan Rich, described by Naomi Shihab Nye on the back cover of her first prize-winning collection The Cartographer’sTongue as “a caring citizen of every heart-land.” Not only that, she is a brave and dedicated teacher: her article is filled with examples … Continue reading →

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On A Condition of the Spirit: The Life and Work of Larry Levis

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 14, 2005 by Sheila BenderDecember 16, 2011

A few years back, I received an email from Christopher Buckley requesting permission to reprint a review I’d written in an anthology of work by and about the late poet Larry Levis. I was thrilled to share what I’d written many years earlier for Poet Lore, a literary magazine in the Washington DC area. I’d … Continue reading →

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Do Not Betray Yourself or Your Community

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 7, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

…if you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole. — Rollo May, The Courage to Create It’s National Poetry Month and time to rededicate ourselves … Continue reading →

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Pitch Perfect

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 31, 2005 by Jandy NelsonSeptember 26, 2011

This material was originally published in the Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, edited by Katharine Sands Pitch Perfect by Jandy Nelson Years ago, I received a query letter that began: “I am a Vietnamese American man, a witness to the Fall of Saigon, a prisoner of war, an escapee, … Continue reading →

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Medicare Essay

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 24, 2005 by Marlee MillmanSeptember 26, 2011

This year Marlee Millman wrote an essay to read to her family and friends who were gathering to celebrate her 65th birthday in her hometown of Chicago. She was excited and wanted to have a speech prepared. She emailed me: Hi Sheila, Here’s the beginning of my essay on meeting Medicare. It’s hard to believe … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes

Writing About Your Day Job

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 17, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

So often, we believe we have to put our daytime work aside in order to write and in order to reach the place inside ourselves where writing comes from. But I believe we will be more successful at tapping into and mining the writing part of ourselves if instead of always waiting for the time … Continue reading →

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Servings Per Container

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 10, 2005 by Meg FilesOctober 27, 2011

After creating an exercise from which her fiction writing students wrote stories, Meg did the exercise herself.  She says, “In my story, a woman is suddenly afraid to leave a grocery store. Why? As I began the story, I didn’t know. I had this scrap of paper that said ‘Fear of exiting a supermarket.’ So … Continue reading →

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The Most Promising Fictional Characters are Obsessed

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 3, 2005 by Meg FilesSeptember 26, 2011

“Our most promising fictional characters are obsessed,” says Meg Files, Writing It Real correspondent and author of Write From Life: Turning Your Personal Experiences into Compelling Stories. “They’re looking desperately for love or passion or parents or fame. They’re searching for answers to questions they can barely ask. Their obsessions offer writers a way to … Continue reading →

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What is Poetry?

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 25, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

When I walked into an independent bookstore recently and saw Apprentice of the Flower Poet Z. on a table of new fiction paperbacks, I picked it up because of its title and then read the first of the back cover blurbs: “A splendid satire of literary life…Annabelle is the perfect naïf, the babe in the … Continue reading →

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An Idea to Launch Essays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 18, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

Three days ago, the weather grew suddenly cold where I live in Port Townsend, WA, and for the last two mornings there has been light snow and frost on our roofs and on the ground.  This is not typical weather for Western Washington, so when I arose and saw sudden snow falling fast and sticking … Continue reading →

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Niche Dating Essay Yields Results

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 11, 2005 by Marilyn MeyerSeptember 26, 2011

Last Valentine’s Day, I read an essay in The Seattle Weekly by Marilyn Meyer, a friend of mine who had raised a family in Seattle the same years I had and who, having survived remarriage and divorce a time more than I, was single again.  Dating was getting harder as she got older, and at … Continue reading →

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Keeping a Writer’s Journal

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 4, 2005 by Sheila BenderSeptember 26, 2011

I am currently teaching an online course entitled Journal Like the Pros for Writers.com. Each week, participants use prompts and examples I send to them to comb their memories and observations and put words on the page that surprise them with wit, charm, and poignancy. The entries the participants send affirm the idea that when … Continue reading →

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Prompts Inspired By In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal, edited by Kitchen & Jones

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 27, 2005 by Sheila BenderOctober 27, 2011

Janice Eidus, author and Writing It Real correspondent, currently teaches creative nonfiction for the University of New Orleans and uses writing prompts with her students based on the essay anthology In Brief, a book I discussed in my December 16, 2004 article. This week, she shares those prompts with us, and I offer a demonstration … Continue reading →

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An Interview with Humorist Judy Gruen

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 20, 2005 by Judy GruenSeptember 26, 2011

I have been enjoying humor writer Judy Gruen’s essays since she published her first collection of them, Carpool Tunnel Syndrome: Motherhood as Shuttle Diplomacy, and began an Internet newsletter to deliver her humorous column, Off My Noodle, to a wide audience. She has since written a second book entitled, Till We Eat Again: Confessions of … Continue reading →

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Revenge of the Chihuahua

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 13, 2005 by Judy GruenSeptember 26, 2011

These essays first appeared in “Off My Noodle“. Revenge of the Chihuahua by Judy Gruen I have always had a secret hankering to take bold and dramatic action to further the cause of liberty. Sadly, I have had few opportunities to foist my valuable opinions on the public. Heck, I haven’t even served on jury … Continue reading →

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A Read Through Judith Kitchen’s Work

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 30, 2004 by Judith KitchenOctober 27, 2011

After reading In Short and In Brief, two anthologies of short personal essays co-edited by author Judith Kitchen, I re-read her collected essays in Only the Dance and Distance and Direction, and then her novel The House on Eccles Road. As I went to my bookshelf, I plucked Distance and Direction down first and returned … Continue reading →

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Two Essays by Judith Kitchen

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 23, 2004 by Judith KitchenSeptember 27, 2011

Yellow by Judith Kitchen (Reprinted by permission of the author from Distance and Direction, Coffee House Press, 2001, this essay first appeared in the Great River Review.) Lately the rush hour traffic begins before you have to put your headlights on. The season’s turned. I’m thinking back to summer solstice, thirty-five years ago, in Denmark. … Continue reading →

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Insights into Endings – Part 2

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 16, 2004 by Judith KitchenOctober 27, 2011

After reading essayist and editor Judith Kitchen’s observations about effective essay endings for last week’s article, I turned to In Brief, the second of two creative nonfiction anthologies Kitchen co-edited with Mary Paumier Jones and published with W.W. Norton. In the introduction to this 1999 volume, Kitchen and Jones write that in addition to an … Continue reading →

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Insights into Endings

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 9, 2004 by Judith KitchenSeptember 27, 2011

In “Endings,” an instructional essay for the literary journal Fourth Genre, Fall, 2001, Judith Kitchen asserts that in a piece of creative nonfiction, “the building of thought is what interests the reader.” “We look as much for how an author approaches a subject,” she writes, “as for the subject itself.” In reading and writing essays, … Continue reading →

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In Short – An Inspiring Essay Anthology Edited by Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 2, 2004 by Sheila BenderSeptember 27, 2011

“It is a matter of proportion,” Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones say about the criteria they used for selecting essays for an anthology entitled In Short and published by W. W. Norton in 1996.  Noticing that nonfiction writers they admired were frequently writing very short prose, they realized that what mattered in an essay … Continue reading →

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An Inland Navy

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 25, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 27, 2011

In last week’s article I reviewed Natalie Goldberg’s The Great Failure: A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth. Near the end of the book, when Goldberg’s elderly father, who’d been operated on for colon cancer, sits down to hamburgers with her at a restaurant, my back bristled.  In my opinion, the author … Continue reading →

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A Story of Two Fathers and the Daughter Who Loves Food Too Much

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 18, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Reading popular writing guru Natalie Goldberg’s newly published memoir, The Great Failure: A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth, Harper San Francisco, 2004, I am drawn to the speaker’s many descriptions of the two influential male figures in her life, her bartender father and her now deceased Zen teacher. When she writes … Continue reading →

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Excerpt from Writing and Publishing Personal Essays by Sheila Bender

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 11, 2004 by Sam TurnerOctober 30, 2011

This week I am sharing an excerpt from my new book Writing and Publishing Personal Essays, just out from Silver Threads in San Diego. The excerpt demonstrates the power of extended metaphor for writing the essay. **** Telling It How It Never Was to Find Out How It Is One of the exercises you can … Continue reading →

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Birthday Memories Offer Kernels For More Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 4, 2004 by Linda KrischOctober 27, 2011

This week, in the last of four articles presenting writing generated from Writing It Real exercises, I have included the work of three subscribers who sent me results from the exercise I proposed in Remembering Your Birthdays, August 19, 2004.   After reading Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven, I felt certain that … Continue reading →

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Instructional Exercise based on Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 28, 2004 by Carole SaboOctober 30, 2011

Just before most of us turn our clocks back, and we are well into fall, I’d like to share two subscribers’ results from the exercise I proposed in “Put Summer on the Page,” July 8, 2004. In that article, I excerpted words from Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and discussed a writing strategy that facilitates collecting … Continue reading →

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Villanelles by Writing It Real Subscribers

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 21, 2004 by Mary KurtzOctober 1, 2011

It seemed to me that if we copied Thomas’ technique of speaking in paired commands, we might write well.  Although I didn’t expect readers to necessarily write tight villanelles as a result of the exercise (I actually suggested repeating the lines throughout an essay), two Writing It Real subscribers sent me the villanelles they’d created … Continue reading →

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Writing It Real Subscribers’ Braided Poem

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 14, 2004 by Jackie SedwickOctober 27, 2011

In May, I posted an article called “Coaxing Imaginative Awareness,” in which I reviewed Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser.  After reading the review, some Writing It Real subscribers teamed up to work on creating braided verse inspired by the results of these two poets.  One of these teams, … Continue reading →

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Jiggs

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 7, 2004 by Helen MitchellOctober 27, 2011

Excerpted by permission of the author from Helen’s Garden: What we learned about life and love in a small country school, by Helen Mitchell, Niche Press, 2003. One of many stories in Helen’s Garden, “Jiggs” reminds us that we are all learners and sharing the process of one’s learning fosters friendship. Jiggs by Helen Mitchell … Continue reading →

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A Fortunate Meeting with Helen Mitchell and her book, Helen’s Garden

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 30, 2004 by Helen MitchellOctober 1, 2011

On a sunny day in mid-July, I visited a lavender farm in Sequim, WA with my friend Judy from Northern California.  She was beginning to grow lavender herself, and as a merchant at her local farmers’ market, she was eager to add lavender products to her offerings. At the small organic farm, we met Helen … Continue reading →

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Sandi C. Shore’s Secrets to Standup Success

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 23, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Most teachers who understand writing as a process say that the first step is to play with words.  They provide exercises for helping students jump and run and climb on the word playground.  But what if your teacher is a stand-up comic?  Well, then, she helps you define your personality, sharpen your comedic style, and … Continue reading →

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Just My Two Cents Worth

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 16, 2004 by Jack GrapesOctober 27, 2011

Having been a student of Jack Grapes, I am privileged to be on his email list and receive messages about reading and activities that inspire thoughts about the nature of writing.  In a recent email from Jack about authenticity in writing, I read this opening question, “If you can’t do it in the journal, what … Continue reading →

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The Lonely Voyage of Betty Mouat, Part II

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 9, 2004 by Barbara SjoholmMay 25, 2015

In the latter half of Chapter III of Barbara Sjoholm’s The Pirate Queen:  In Search of Grace O’Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea, the author finds a woman who tells her the truth about women’s fishing history in Norway. “The Lonely Voyage of Betty Mouat” (c0ntinued) Excerpted by permission of the author from … Continue reading →

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The Lonely Voyage of Betty Mouat

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 2, 2004 by Barbara SjoholmMay 14, 2015

The Lonely Voyage of Betty Mouat We are pleased to present Chapter VIII of Barbara Sjoholm’s new book in two parts.  In this chapter, the author tracks down information on a woman who at age 59 was the sole survivor of a boating accident off the Shetland Islands in the winter of 1886.  Looking for … Continue reading →

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A Conversation with writer Barbara Sjoholm

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 26, 2004 by Barbara SjoholmMay 31, 2015

This past spring, The Seattle Times ran a review of Barbara Sjoholm”s new book The Pirate Queen:  In Search of Grace O”Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea.  The review opens: If Janet Forsyth lived in the here and now, instead of 17th-century Scotland, she would be on the front page across the country. … Continue reading →

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Remembering Your Birthdays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 19, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

In Mitch Albom’s tale, 83-year-old Eddie Maintenance, as children call him because of the stitching on his work shirt, dies in an amusement park accident at Ruby Pier, where he has spent decades making sure that all the rides are operating safely.  In the course of the book and our introduction to Albom’s version of … Continue reading →

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Email Conversation with Poet and Non Fiction Author Tim McNulty

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 12, 2004 by Tim McNultyOctober 1, 2011

This March, I attended the first annual Burning Word Festival on Whidbey Island, a 30-minute ferry ride from my home, for a day devoted to listening to poetry and instruction by Washington State practitioners.  On the way over to the island on a very early ferry, I watched high school students in brightly colored sports … Continue reading →

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Prose and Poetry from Northwest Poet, Naturalist and Nonfiction Writer Tim McNulty

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 5, 2004 by Tim McNultyOctober 1, 2011

In the few days he had between meeting his deadlines and leaving for a month at a remote fire lookout in the North Cascades National Park, naturalist, author and poet Tim McNulty took the time to answer some questions that I had posed to him about his career. In addition, he also graciously gave me … Continue reading →

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Try Your Hand at Fiction

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 29, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Summers in Port Townsend, WA, an arts organization called Centrum hosts a ten-day writers conference.  It is a sensational time, with nationally known poets and writers teaching participants who are serious about writing. Highlights include craft lectures and readings in a small auditorium across from tennis courts at the State Park entrance.  Almost twenty-five years … Continue reading →

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Review of Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer by Jenna Glatzer

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 22, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

In Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer: How to Win Top Writing Assignments (Nomad Press, 2004), writer Jenna Glatzer, who is Editor-in-Chief of absolutewrite.com, may insult some of us in her early chapters as she offers tips on blazing trails toward magazine article publishing, but by Chapter Six, her book is of real … Continue reading →

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The Argument and Persuasion Essay

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 15, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

What does it take to write persuasively and to move others to read and stay interested in your point-of-view?  What does it take to write to change their thinking and behavior? Eda La Shan, the early childhood specialist, once said something about dealing with children that I remember when writing argument-and-persuasion essays.  She said that … Continue reading →

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Put Summer on the Page

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 8, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Ray Bradbury’s novel Dandelion Wine has long been a favorite of mine. In one summer, the novel’s protagonist, twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding, encounters the richness of life.  The book opens with the announcement that he is allowed to sleep in his grandparents’ cupola one night a week during summer vacation, and upon waking, he performs a … Continue reading →

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Nancy Pearl’s Introduction to Book Lust

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 1, 2004 by Nancy PearlOctober 1, 2011

Copyright ©2003 by Nancy Pearl. Reprinted from Book Lust by Nancy Pearl with permission of Sasquatch Books. I love to read. And while I might not absolutely agree with the Anglo-American man of letters Logan Pearsall Smith, who said, “People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading,” I come awfully close to … Continue reading →

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An Interview with Book Lust author Nancy Pearl (the Most Avid Reader Anyone Knows)

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 24, 2004 by Nancy PearlOctober 1, 2011

After years of spreading the word far and wide about reading and drumming up interest in books and literature, Nancy Pearl, the Seattle Library’s Director of Programming and Director for the Washington Center for the Book, has a new book out herself.  It’s entitled Book Lust:  Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason.  At … Continue reading →

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Writing to Explore Admiration, Part 2

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 17, 2004 by Sheila BenderMay 20, 2019

Many of us know the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night“ by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who is pleading in his famous villanelle that his father not easily give in to death.  The archetype of the father is strong in all of us, even if our own fathers remain enigmas to … Continue reading →

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Ashes

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 4, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

This essay first appeared in Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Essay, Volume 9, Number 2. Feldman Brothers’ mortuary of Denver called two days after Seth’s death to say we could come to get his ashes.  My husband Kurt and I left for the mortuary with the idea of driving to scatter some of our … Continue reading →

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A Conversation with David Horowitz, Poet and Publisher

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 20, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

This spring, I met publisher and poet David D. Horowitz, who was selling books from his Rose Alley Press, at the Redmond, Washington Poets in the Park Conference.  As I browsed the press’s well-designed, handsome books, David asked if he could read me a poem from one.  “Of course,” I said, and he read from … Continue reading →

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Coaxing Imaginative Awareness

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 13, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Braided Creek:  A Conversation in Poetry by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser (Copper Canyon Press) offers wisdom, sensitive observation and love of essence.  On the book’s back cover, the editors have written that one of the poets said, “This book is an assertion in favor of poetry and against credentials.” According to my Webster’s, a … Continue reading →

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Prompts to Make Shapely, Focused Stories (and Essays)

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 6, 2004 by Jack HeffronDecember 5, 2011

Writers often use prompts to help them come up with original ways of opening and organizing their work.  Whenever I dip into The Writer’s Idea Book and The Writer’s Idea Workshop by Jack Heffron, I find help for inventing and shaping ideas that I want to grow into finished pieces.  Here are some words from … Continue reading →

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Resources for Writers of Personal Experience

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 29, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

It’s spring-cleaning time, and I’ve gone through my files and bookshelves to update resources for those who write from personal experience.  Here is Part I of my annotated list of resources, including books, journals and websites: Books on How to Write Essays and How To Find Subjects from Your Experience for All Your Writing The … Continue reading →

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Writing for Mother’s Day

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 22, 2004 by Sheila BenderAugust 3, 2013

With Mother’s Day approaching, I once again reread two poems by Stanley Plumly that I admire. In “Say Summer/For My Mother,” Plumly writes: I could give it back to you, perhaps in a season, say summer.  I could give you leaf back, green grass, sky full of rain… And in “Two Moments, for My Mother,” … Continue reading →

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Notes on chixLIT: the Literary Zine for Chicks Ages 7 to 17

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 15, 2004 by Maria D. LasoOctober 1, 2011

When I was a girl of 10 and already a writer in my own mind, I was frustrated that no one took my writing seriously. I nevertheless decided that I would be a Rhodes Scholar and a winner of a Pulitzer and a Nobel by the time I was 30, at which point I would … Continue reading →

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Three Days and Three Nights

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 8, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

In The Heart Aroused:  Poetry and Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, poet David Whyte writes: The core of difficulty at the heart of modern work life is its abstraction from many of the ancient cycles of life that allow the silence and time in which true appreciation and experience can take place.  The … Continue reading →

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On Poetry Collaboration

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 1, 2004 by James BertolinoOctober 1, 2011

Editor’s Note: All the poems printed in this article are a collaboration of the two authors, James Bertolino and Anita K. Boyle. “Hard Candy” first appeared in the print journal Cranky, No. 1, 2004 as did James Bertolino’s instructional essay on poetic collaboration;  “One Day” appeared in StringTown, No.6, 2003 and “On Edge” appeared in … Continue reading →

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Fine

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 25, 2004 by Jack GrapesOctober 1, 2011

My great fantasy when I was in my early teens was that my dad and I would go bowling on a Saturday morning, then go out to breakfast together. Maybe to one of those broken down waterfront joints next to the wharf where coffee was served in thick, white mugs. Just the two of us. … Continue reading →

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The Debris of Abstraction and Sentimentality

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 18, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Feeling overwhelmed by data, random information, the flotsam and jetsam of mass culture, we relish the spectacle of a single consciousness making sense of a portion of the chaos…” — Scott Russell Sanders As readers of essays and poems, we understand what Sanders means, and we are grateful to writers who provide the spectacle of … Continue reading →

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A Review of Tell It Slant

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 11, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Two professors from the Creative Writing Program at Western Washington State University in Bellingham, Washington have put together Tell It Slant, an enlightening, comprehensive and very satisfying text on writing and shaping creative nonfiction.  The book includes a 237-page bonus anthology of 32 essays by notable writers Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, … Continue reading →

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A Review of Tell It Slant

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 11, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

Meg Files is a novelist, short fiction writer, creative nonfiction writer, poet and writing instructor extraordinaire.  She has helped hundreds of students write and publish their writing, and she always takes their concerns seriously.  Recently, when one student’s problem with writing lingered, Meg wrote a letter in which she imagines herself offering this student standard, … Continue reading →

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Letter to a Young Perfectionist

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 4, 2004 by Meg FilesOctober 1, 2011

Meg Files is a novelist, short fiction writer, creative nonfiction writer, poet and writing instructor extraordinaire.  She has helped hundreds of students write and publish their writing, and she always takes their concerns seriously.  Recently, when one student’s problem with writing lingered, Meg wrote a letter in which she imagines herself offering this student standard, … Continue reading →

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Put Your Ear To Work In Writing Your Essays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 26, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

When essayists learn to listen closely to the music they are making on the page and examine what the changes in the music mean, they learn to make the sounds of exactly what they have experienced and of exactly what they have learned. That is when essays reach true depth and speak most clearly — … Continue reading →

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Reporting the Earthquakes in Life

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 19, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 1, 2011

In Daughter’s Keeper, a novel by Ayelet Waldman, the main characters are Elaine and her daughter Olivia. The novel succeeds as a portrayal of love redeemed between a mother and daughter against the backdrop of the United States’ drug enforcement system. Currently a Berkeley resident, author Ayelet Waldman is a graduate of Harvard Law School … Continue reading →

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The Development of a Poem by Betty Shafer

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 12, 2004 by Betty ShaferOctober 29, 2011

When Betty Shafer sent me the following poem for help in revising it, I read it and found something haunting stayed with me after I read the lines. Look Again We return to find our land barren Weeds choking walls and fences And silent rotting houses. But when we look again we see Ruby red … Continue reading →

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One Author’s Road to Creating Intimate Non-Fiction

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 5, 2004 by Susan K. Perry PhDOctober 1, 2011

This week’s article is an interview with author Susan K. Perry, Ph.D.  Her latest book is Loving in Flow: How the Happiest Couples Get & Stay That Way.  Susan makes good use of her personal experience in a second marriage as well as the experience of other couples to help her readers understand how they … Continue reading →

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There’s Help Out There for Building a Writing Life You Love

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 29, 2004 by Barbara Caplan-BennettOctober 2, 2011

While I was living in Los Angeles these past several years, I was lucky enough to meet Barbara Caplan-Bennett, a fellow member of the Independent Writers of Southern California.  A novelist and trained action coach, Barbara is a person who helps writers redesign their approach to life so they can write. Here’s how she writes … Continue reading →

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The Story of One Poem’s Evolution

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 21, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

About 10 years ago, I wrote this poem, which was distributed on a lovely poster illustrated with a picture of a rocking chair with wings on its back and a moon on its seat.  The chair was poised on the roof of a house, amidst a block of other houses without winged rocking chairs atop … Continue reading →

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Delivering Your Personal Essays to Market, Part 2

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 15, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

Continuing from last week’s article, which included resources for publishing markets as well as six stories from writers on how they got into print, this week we share six more stories by writers of essays, children’s books, short fiction, nonfiction books, magazine articles and radio commentary.  These writers discuss the way they made connections with … Continue reading →

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Delivering Your Personal Essays to Market, Part 1

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 8, 2004 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

To publish your work, you must consider many markets and match your material to them:  literary small press publications, national large circulation publications, local newspapers, regional and national newspapers, radio, industry publications and online sites and publications.  It is rare for a writer to start at the “top” with national publications before publishing locally and … Continue reading →

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The Holiness of the Heart’s Affections

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 25, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

I recently came across the following quote from German philosopher Karl Jaspers whose work influenced theology and psychology: Truth, he wrote,  “only appears in time as a reality-through-communication. Abstracted from communication, truth hardens into an unreality.” For those of us who write from personal experience this means that our words supply the necessary blood, tissues, … Continue reading →

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Private Writing as Playroom

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 18, 2003 by Rebecca McClanahanMarch 30, 2023

This week’s article is an excerpt from Rebecca McClanahan’s instructional book Write Your Heart Out: Exploring & Expressing What Matters To You, published by Walking Stick Press.  This season, as we watch children in an environment where everything seems transformed, we re-experience the magic of childhood.  Rebecca McClanahan’s thoughts and advice help us retrieve the … Continue reading →

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Sow More Seeds for Personal Essay Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 11, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

I enjoy dipping into a collection of short fiction entitled You’ve Got To Read This as much for the pleasure of the fiction itself as for gathering new ideas about how to organize writing.  There is something about the way short fiction writers tell stories that inspires the essay writer in me.  When I opened … Continue reading →

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On the Development of the Poem “Under Cover of Green”

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 4, 2003 by Christine RobinsonDecember 6, 2011

Shortly after I posted the September 11, 2003 instructional exercise for Writing It Real, subscriber Christine Robinson sent me some writing of hers that resulted from using the exercise.  In this week’s article, I want to show you what she wrote and how she developed the draft, which she thought resembled a prose poem, into … Continue reading →

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Study a Scene from David Beckman’s Novel-in-Progress

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 27, 2003 by David BeckmanOctober 2, 2011

Here is a sample scene from the novel-in-progress that David Beckman refers to in last week’s interview about being mentored in his writing.  You will notice that he has made stylistic decisions in using sentence fragments to evoke the little boy Addison’s point of view.  He also uses terminology of the time period he is … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises

Working with a Writing Mentor

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 20, 2003 by Janice EidusMay 13, 2018

As a writing instructor, it is always interesting to me to talk with other writers who teach.  I enjoy hearing about the parts of the teaching process that excite them.  This past June, I had the opportunity to talk over breakfast with New York writer Janice Eidus.  She said: When I guide writers in their … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, From Our Contributors, WIR2006

Useful Writing Strategies from The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 13, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

Not scheduled for release until January 2004, The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters, an epistolary novel by Elisabeth Robinson, has already received excellent reviews.  If you are developing a wish list for holiday gifts, I recommend putting this book on that list.  It is a pleasurable read, by turns hilarious and poignant, … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Reading for Writing

Interview with Joni Cole, an Editor of the This Day: Diaries from American Women Project

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 6, 2003 by Joni ColeDecember 5, 2011

At the May 2003 Book Expo America in Los Angeles, Joni Cole handed out advance copies of an exciting book, eventually released this September. Joni is a freelance writer with a Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies from Dartmouth College with a focus on fiction.  It is second nature for her to imagine and create … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Writing Makes a Difference

An Exercise for Finding Starts in Personal Essay Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 30, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

Although it might not be obvious, those of us who write personal essays can benefit greatly from not knowing what we have to write about.  That is surprising to people who think of the essay as researched knowledge with a professorial, didactic tone.  But to write an essay is really to “assay” or test out … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises

Jerome Gold of Black Heron Press on Independent Publishing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 23, 2003 by Jerome GoldOctober 2, 2011

Every Labor Day Weekend at the Bumbershoot Arts Festival held at Seattle Center, Jerome (Jerry to his friends) Gold mans a Black Heron Press booth at the festival’s book fair.  In April of each year, he mans the booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and also at the May Book Expo America … Continue reading →

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A Look at Four Writers Who Inhabit the Moment

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 16, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

Lately, I’ve read a book of Buddhist wisdom by Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, poetry by the Northwest’s James Bertolino, essays by the Northeast’s Philip Simmons and memoirs by the Southwest’s Laurence Shames and by Timothy Doyle, who has lived in India for years.  In each of the author’s performances, I am reminded that when … Continue reading →

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Memoirist Joelle Fraser Talks About Her Process

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 9, 2003 by Joelle FraserOctober 2, 2011

I met Joelle Fraser at the 2003 Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference, where we both presented.  Her book The Territory of Men intrigued me.  Sherman Alexie (author of The Toughest Indian in the World), and Beverly Donofrio (author of Riding in Cars with Boys) both blurbed the book saying it is written with honesty and is … Continue reading →

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Advice from the Book Doctor

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 18, 2003 by Robyn ConleyOctober 2, 2011

Robyn Conley and I met at a time when we both had books on journaling newly out from Walking Stick Press.  Robyn’s role at the Society of Southwestern Authors‘ conference we taught at involved individual editing sessions with conference participants.  Her skills as a book doctor involve sentence editing for grammar and punctuation as well … Continue reading →

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A Strategy for Creating Insight in a Personal Essay

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 11, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

On this September 11, two years after the tragedy at the World Trade Centers in NY, many of us who write believe more whole heartedly than ever that getting our words on the page makes a difference in our lives and in the lives of those who read our words. The World Trade Centers tragedy … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Instructional Exercises

Writing Children’s Books: Not as Easy as A B C

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 4, 2003 by Nancy Smiler LevinsonOctober 2, 2011

Those of us who write from personal experience often think that we’d like to share life lessons and delights in the form of literature for children.  Excited by our desire to write, we also feel in touch with the child in ourselves who loves learning and has a need to know.   But when it comes … Continue reading →

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Australian Poet Doris Leadbetter tells us about Mrs. Arthur P. Craven

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 28, 2003 by Doris LeadbetterOctober 2, 2011

I have been in correspondence with a grand dame of Australian Poetry.  I met Doris Leadbetter in 2002, when she and her husband Richard spent their winter holiday (our summertime) away from Melbourne attending writers’ conferences in the US and visiting Richard’s home state of Montana.  All of us at the Colorado Mt. Writers’ Workshop … Continue reading →

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Subscriber Response to Instructional Exercises

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 21, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 27, 2011

“Poetry is a form of necessary speech,” Edward Hirsch writes in How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, and “poems strike something deeper than thought itself…experience that takes us to the very heart of being.” Over the months, subscribers have sent results from exercises in Writing It Real, exercises meant to … Continue reading →

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After the Ball

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 14, 2003 by Steven WinnOctober 2, 2011

After posting last week’s interview about Steven Winn’s ideas for finding contacts on the publishing scene, I am pleased to reprint his wonderful essay about a spring day during a most difficult passage in his life.  The essay originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on Father’s Day 2002 under the headline “Good Day at … Continue reading →

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Make the Stretch to Get Your Foot in the Door

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on August 7, 2003 by Steven WinnOctober 2, 2011

The Sunday July 20, 2003 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle was proud to report that its journalists are serving the Bay Area community well.  Arts and culture critic Steven Winn was among four Chronicle writers who placed in the 15th annual American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors’ Excellence in Writing contest.  This marks … Continue reading →

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A Prompt for Finding Essay Topic Ideas

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 31, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 2, 2011

At Yourdictionary.com, linguists maintain a page about word definitions and histories. I signed up on the web to have these words and stories about their usage emailed to me each day. Some of the words are ones that I’ve never heard or even read. Others are words I use everyday and never think about.  After … Continue reading →

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An Email Exchange with Amy Holman, Director of Poets and Writers Publishing Workshops

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 24, 2003 by Amy HolmanOctober 2, 2011

As the creator and director of Poets & Writers’ Publishing Seminars Program, Amy Holman addresses the needs of writers (including herself).  She teaches writers what they need to know about matching their work with the right editors and agents.  In a recent email interview, Amy described the goals and successes of the publishing seminars program.  … Continue reading →

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The Sum of All Its Parts

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 17, 2003 by Caroline ArnoldOctober 2, 2011

Caroline Arnold, who has published over 100 nonfiction books for children, is a pro at finding information on sophisticated topics and making it fit the page limits set by her publishers.  To do this she uses captions, sidebars, glossaries, charts and maps, time lines, and lists of resources for further reading as well as authors’ … Continue reading →

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Embedded in The Dogs of Babel

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 10, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

On my vacation this year along the shores of Lake Michigan, I was reading the last chapters of an advance reading copy of The Dogs of Babel on the day it appeared in bookstores across America.  Little, Brown and Company introduced the book at this year’s Book Expo America to stimulate interest among booksellers, and … Continue reading →

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From High Midnight

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on July 3, 2003 by Meg FilesOctober 4, 2011

Meg Files enjoys researching and uses what she learns to set her stories and to inform her characters.  In the excerpt below, 19-year-old Hanna accompanies her father, who is researching for a magazine feature article, on a car trip to a Western rendezvous.  Using modern characters with an interest in traditions of the West, Meg … Continue reading →

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In Passing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 26, 2003 by SusanBonoOctober 4, 2011

Last week you read an article by Susan Bono on the personal essay–writing them, teaching them, and starting a magazine for publishing them.  This week’s article is a personal essay by Susan Bono, which appears in the anthology Saltwater, Sweetwater–Women Write from California‘s North Coast, Floreant Press, 1997.  You will see why this essay, rich … Continue reading →

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Lessons from Years of Facilitating Personal Essay Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 19, 2003 by SusanBonoOctober 4, 2011

A couple of years ago, I began receiving Tiny Lights, a publication out of Northern California that is dedicated to the personal essay.  I was struck by the caliber of the essays in each issue and contacted the publisher of the journal to find out more about her publishing vision and dedication to the genre.  … Continue reading →

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Writing a Father’s Day Poem

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 12, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

When I was writing monthly poetry writing columns for Writer’s Digest Magazine, I created strategies for writing poetry that utilized as a jumping off place the topical thoughts our culture promotes each month.  I wanted to help those who wanted to write poetry liberate themselves from the influence of the advertising buzz and Hallmark card … Continue reading →

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Behind the Scenes

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on June 5, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

This essay first appeared in slightly different form in The Diarist’s Journal, Volume II, Issue #2 The first week of my first graduate poetry-writing workshop at the University of Washington, our teacher William Matthews came to class in paint-stained clothes.  A new arrival at the University, he was just moving into his house on Seattle’s … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Sheila Bender On Writing

What I Learned at the Halfway House

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 29, 2003 by Sheena ChestnutOctober 4, 2011

When my daughter told me to read a personal essay in her school’s alumni magazine, I did.  I enjoy finding the many places personal essays inhabit and I appreciate their great value.  In this case, Stanford sophomore Sheena Chestnut wrote a narrative about using a personal story to help others learn a sophisticated use of … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Writing Makes a Difference

An Interview with Writer’s Boot Camp Program Director, Robert Morgan Fisher

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 22, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

I had lunch recently with novelist and screenwriter Robert Morgan Fisher, who supervises the online screenwriting program at Writer’s Boot Camp (WBC) in Santa Monica, CA.  His first novel, called Set the Poem Free, won 2nd place in the 2000 Publishing Online North American Fiction Open.  He was awarded $5,000 and briefly published online.  The … Continue reading →

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Tips on Places to Publish, Interesting Journals, and other Resources

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 15, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 27, 2011

The Diarist’s Journal is published three times a year in February, June and October by Hollie Rose. The publication is a rich and lively discussion of journaling, diary keeping, and the community surrounding it. The journal is calling for submissions of reviews of diary-form novels as well as opinion pieces on keeping diaries for publication, … Continue reading →

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Research and Creative Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on May 1, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

Novelist and poet Meg Files recently spoke on a panel at the Associated Writing Program’s annual meeting.  She talked about researching for writing her novels. After her talk, Meg and I conducted an email interview about how her research affects her writing, her imagination, and her teaching. What research did you do for your first … Continue reading →

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Revising the Poem “A Different Christmas”

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 17, 2003 by Karen RippsteinOctober 29, 2011

When Karen Rippstein wrote to me that she wanted my help in shaping a poem from a prose piece she had written about a specific Christmas with her daughter, I was intrigued. Most of the people I’ve worked with bring poems or essays and want to stick with the genre while revising.  But after writing … Continue reading →

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Posted in Archives, Revisions - Sample Successes

An Email Chat with Sebastian Matthews, Founding Editor of Rivendell

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 10, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

As I prepare the following interview with Sebastian Matthews, I’m thinking of an encounter I had at a workshop I co-taught for teachers early this spring at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District.  An administrator for the Peer Assistance program smiled broadly after hugging one of the attending teachers hello. She turned … Continue reading →

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Finding Your Writing’s Occasion

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on April 3, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

Poet Stanley Plumly, a teacher of mine, used to say that poems must weigh more at the end than at the beginning. What matters to us has emotional weight, and as with poetry, the personal essay supplies a vehicle for writers to find out what matters and to feel the weight of what matters. As … Continue reading →

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The Other Side of Silence

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 20, 2003 by Migael SchererOctober 4, 2011

Personal essayists, poets and memoir writers face many questions about making personal truths public.  In the following essay, author Migael Scherer evokes the effects on her readers as well as on herself of her writing about painful truth. Even as she is about to accept a distinguished award, she must brace herself for the dissonance … Continue reading →

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Migael Scherer’s Writing Made a Difference to Journalists

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 13, 2003 by Migael SchererOctober 4, 2011

When writing moves us to struggle against a taboo, especially one that demands silence, we can expect powerful resistance.  It is natural to feel alone, even besieged.  The resistance to our words comes both from ourselves and from others.  If we respect the struggle of our readers to understand with us, so also may come … Continue reading →

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Listening for A Poem’s Discovery

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on March 5, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

If March comes in like a lion, they say, it’ll go out like a lamb and vise versa.  I’d like to combine this notion with an idea that Keats termed “negative capability.” He said that a good poem holds within it one thing as well as its opposite.  For example, when we eulogize someone’s death, … Continue reading →

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Janice Eidus’ Correspondence, Part Two

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 27, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 4, 2011

After our initial correspondence, posted on 12/12/02, author Janice Eidus answered some more questions I posed based on what she’d written to me.  I am delighted to share the continuation of our correspondence this week: When you do decide to write an essay, are you exploring issues that are the same or different than the … Continue reading →

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“Vito Loves Geraldine,” A Short Story

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 20, 2003 by Janice EidusOctober 29, 2011

In our interview with her on 12/12/02, Janice Eidus says, “But there I was, years later, writing about a tough-cookie, teased-hair girl from the Bronx, modeled on the older Italian girls in my neighborhood who had seemed so exotic and fascinating to me, so far removed from my own Jewish, politically progressive household. And I … Continue reading →

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Q-A with Editorial Assistant Meg Leder

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 13, 2003 by Meg LederMay 24, 2011

Ok, you asked what I’ve learned that I might want to pass on to those who Meg Leder was the Writer’s Digest editor who worked with me on Keeping a Journal You Love and A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery.  Recently, she made a career move and left Cincinnati and Writer’s Digest Books … Continue reading →

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Writing On Love: Lessons From Pablo Neruda and Christopher Smart

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on February 6, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 6, 2011

About 1020 words In these days just before Valentine’s Day, it seems as if every shop window, radio and TV commercial has turned the volume up on love. “Don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget,” whether the one you love is spouse, partner, grandchild, parent or pet, you must tell the one you love — by … Continue reading →

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An Email Interview with Sue William Silverman

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 30, 2003 by Sue William SilvermanOctober 6, 2011

When fiction writer Janice Eidus (see the From Our Correspondents article of 12/12/02) introduced me to the work of nonfiction writer Sue William Silverman, I knew I wanted to find out what she had to say on memoir writing.  After I read both of her memoirs, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You and … Continue reading →

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Carrying Back to Carry Forward

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 23, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 6, 2011

Sheila Bender, July Poetry Column, 1295 words When an author repeats the same word or words at the beginning of a series of sentences the technique is called “anaphora.” In Greek, it means “a carrying up or back.”  With repetitions, words gather power and resonance.  Anaphora offers an organizing strategy, which allows for deepening of … Continue reading →

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Writing All That is Unsolved in Your Heart

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 16, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 6, 2011

Category: Instructional Exercises So many times we find that what we are writing sounds dry and dull compared to what we wish to be writing or what we admire in other’s writing.  “How can we make our work matter?” we ask ourselves, “How can we endow our writing with richer more resonate meaning?”  Or sometimes … Continue reading →

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Carrying the Raindrops

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 9, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 6, 2011

When my daughter was 14 months old, we lived in Seattle, and she and I spent a cold, cloudy winter afternoon at the Woodland Park Zoo.  Her favorite animals were the uncaged pigeons she realized she could send into flight by running towards them.  A day later when we saw the newspaper’s front page, we … Continue reading →

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Publishing Your Poetry and Your Essays

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on January 2, 2003 by Sheila BenderOctober 6, 2011

Writing Poetry Through Storms and Showers “You have helped me learn how to write a poem. You have taught me how to shape an essay. But I’m not sure about how to get something published. How do I publish my work?” “If an editor sends my poems or essays back without comments, how can I … Continue reading →

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Why Poetry? A Novelist Reflects

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 26, 2002 by Joanne RocklinOctober 17, 2011

This article originally appeared in the 1999 issue of The Sampler, the newsletter of the Southern California Children’s Literature Council (formerly the Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People (SCCLCYP). When I was seven years old, I wrote a poem to console my father after the defeat of his favorite hockey team, … Continue reading →

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Book Marks

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 19, 2002 by Rebecca McClanahanOctober 17, 2011

Recently I interviewed poet and essayist Rebecca McClanahan for a book on essay writing that I am finishing for Writer’s Digest Books.  When I told her that I had reviewed her essay “Book Marks,” which I’d found in Best American Essays 2001 for Writing It Real subscribers, she offered to allow me to reprint the … Continue reading →

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Correspondence with Fiction Writer Janice Eidus

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on December 12, 2002 by Janice EidusOctober 17, 2011

This fall I corresponded with novelist and short fiction writer Janice Eidus to investigate how fiction writers use personal experience in their writing.  I have admired Eidus’ fiction and her teaching for many years now and in 1997, I invited her to contribute to my book, The Writer’s Journal: 40 Writers and Their Journals, published … Continue reading →

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Using Quotes to Spur Your Writing

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 21, 2002 by Sheila BenderOctober 18, 2011

I like to keep quotes in an 8 by 5 inch blue-cloth covered three-ring binder. I write down or tear out quotes that strike my fancy.  They come from books and magazines, affirmations I wish to repeat to myself, fortunes from cookies, remarks during a lecture, writings in a program, overheard dialog or something a … Continue reading →

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More Than Your English Teacher Ever Told You – Part II

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 14, 2002 by Sheila BenderOctober 29, 2011

I’ve been editing essays this fall for professionals who are applying to graduate school programs. As always, I am pointing out passive voice constructions and instructing the applicants on how to make them active constructions, and I’m also pointing out dangling modifiers and suggesting alternative wording. I know from looking at my own drafts and … Continue reading →

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Bringing Dear Mom: Remembering Our Mothers Into the World

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on November 7, 2002 by Patricia HasslerOctober 16, 2024

When her mother’s Parkinson’s had progressed, Patricia Hassler quit her job and became her mother’s caretaker.  Realizing she needed a creative outlet, she answered an ad in a local paper for a columnist to write about a nearby suburb where her husband was teaching. The newspaper editor also wanted features about what was going on … Continue reading →

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More Must Reads for Inspiration

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 31, 2002 by Sheila BenderOctober 18, 2011

I’d like to examine how three essays from The Best American Essays 2001 satisfy me as a reader and inspire me as a writer.  I offer my thoughts and some writing ideas based on the essays in the hope that when you read them and the 23 others in the collection, you will not only … Continue reading →

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Personal Flights Into Cyberspace

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 24, 2002 by Bob YehlingOctober 18, 2011

I am delighted to offer readers of Writing It Real this personal essay by writer, editor, and publicist Bob Yehling. In his essay, we get a glimpse of a passionate writer at work, writing from life experience, appreciating the work of others who do so, and looking for places to publish his essays on line.  … Continue reading →

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Finished Essay: “When Love is All You Have”

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 10, 2002 by Mary Ann PayneOctober 18, 2011

The only thing that distinguished this particular examining room from dozens like it was the huge wall chart of hearts in all manner of disease and disarray.  The rest of the room was familiar and predictable – high narrow table sitting cattycorner, white enamel cabinets with boxes of disposable gloves and canisters of gauze in … Continue reading →

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Learning Words by Heart

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on October 3, 2002 by Sheila BenderOctober 18, 2011

A few years ago, I invented a way of coming to writing during times when I felt overwhelmed by my need to write, yet stuck in my ability to get anything of value on the page.  The exercise I invented ultimately helped me to create vignettes, essays, and poems from life experience when I had … Continue reading →

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Resources for Poetry – A Feast for the Soul

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on September 25, 2002 by Sheila BenderOctober 18, 2011

Poetry is a kind of food, shelter, and clothing for which I am thankful.  It nourishes my being, builds a dwelling for my ecstasy and my awe, and keeps me warm when I grieve.  Books on my shelves and on the shelves of libraries and booksellers, poetry sites on the Internet, movies about poetry and … Continue reading →

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