In March, my husband and I ran into Joanne while we were out walking and she was returning home from a walk. Over the CDC prescribed distance, we remembered the radio interview she had done with me for KPTZ, and … Continue reading →
Today is the first day of National Poetry Month 2021. I am posting an interview with James Sulzer, a remarkable writer, who spoke with me about writing two novels that not only celebrate two of historyâs favorite and most influential … Continue reading →
Writing It Real member Mara Lathrop created a project during the pandemic that offers us a chance to experience her play Is Story of Poor Sea Village Girl directed by Cynthia Stokes and performed by SAG actors, Mark Lewis and … Continue reading →
In 2018 and 19, I worked with Writing It Real member Marilea C. Rabasa consulting on a second memoir she was compelled to write and wanted very much to get right. She wasnât happy with the way it was unwinding … Continue reading →
I am pleased to share an essay by Writing It Real member Helen Donnelly Goehring from her recently published collection, Transformed by Grief: A Personal History. Helenâs essay âTaking Notes: Assisted Livingâ was a winner in Writing It Realâs 2012 essay writing contest. Eight years later, she has a whole collection out! Many of us … Continue reading →
Last week, we posted Chapter 40 of Jennifer Jamieson Woodsâ autobiographical novel No Guarantees. This weekâs post is an interview with the author about writing the novel she needed to write. Sheila Jennifer, thank you for sharing the story of writing No Guarantees as well as Chapter 40 from the book for Writing It Real … Continue reading →
Chapter 40 of No Guarantees Josie went to work as usual on Monday morning. Although she was a person who found comfort in the predictable rhythm of life, today she felt irritated and bored with her life. She felt stuck at Caseyâs without any alternative. She was going to have to divorce Rod. She didnât … Continue reading →
I am delighted to introduce authors Dave Cunningham and C.K. Tyler who have collaborated on a newly published novel entitled What Loves Feels Like: The Dawn of Human 2.0. In the video below and the Q&A following, the two speak to their experience of writing the book in collaboration and its short journey to publication. … Continue reading →
This monthâs article is a video of a discussion many of us have been waiting for! I am talking with Marcella Smith, publishing consultant and Barnes and Noble career book buyer. In our conversation, Marcella fills in gaps for us in our understanding of how book representation works. With this knowledge, we are equipped to … Continue reading →
 You may have already read Maya Smithâs description of how she is approaching the writing of her book about the life of Alvenia Bridges, a woman of many lives. She answered questions about obstacles and joys of writing the book as well as how she used her academic research training to approach her interviews … Continue reading →
Maya Angela Smith is an associate professor of Francophone studies at the University of Washington, Seattle with a PhD in Romance Languages and Linguistics from UC Berkeley. Her scholarship broadly focuses on the intersection of race, language, and mobility among marginalized groups in the African diaspora, particularly in the postcolonial francophone world, seen most notably in her academic monograph Senegal … Continue reading →
The Writing It Real March 2020 article is a compilation of writings by Writing It Real members on a topic dear to our heartsâhow and why we write. EBook Formats We have 3 different formats. Which ones you choose depends on how you intend to read the anthology. Print on Paper If you want to … Continue reading →
When I received a review copy of Take Daily As Needed, Kathryn Truebloodâs ânovel in storiesâ from University of New Mexico press, I dove right into reading it. A novel in stories sounded a lot like how I often advocate memoirists I work with approach their workâdiscrete personal essays that when collected move toward an … Continue reading →
Introduction to an Excerpt from Tell it Slant (Available from Powellâs and Amazon as well as your favorite bookseller). By Brenda Miller In 2001, when Suzanne Paola and I began talking about writing a textbook for creative nonfiction, no such book existed. We had been cobbling together our own instructional materials for years, and together … Continue reading →
This spring, thrilled to be reading a new novel by Molly Best Tinsley, both a teaching colleague and Writing It Real contributor, I was even more thrilled to have found a novel that I could not put down from the moment I began reading to the moment I read the very last word on the … Continue reading →
A Princeton professor I once read while for some reason I had no pen or device to record his name and the name of the article wrote that when we read a novel we are speeding up time as one book can contain may days, months, and years. But when we write, he said, we … Continue reading →
As I wrote last week, I feel lucky to have recently had journalist Amy Hewes on my KPTZ FM radio program, âIn Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life.â  Hereâs the link to listen to our conversation. In it, Amy explains how she goes about writing her opinion pieces, and her explanation will help those … Continue reading →
I was lucky enough to have recently had journalist Amy Hewes on my KPTZ FM radio program, âIn Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life.â  Hereâs the link to listen to our conversation. In it, Amy explains how she goes about writing her opinion pieces, and her explanation will help those of us interested in … Continue reading →
Our guest judge Holly Hughes, wrote this about Nancy Lambâs essay: In this essay, the narrator recalls her first visit to Martinâs Ranch in the red rock canyons high above Santa Fe and her first experience with the landscape as sanctuary thatâs still part of her today. In fresh descriptive language, the writer brings us … Continue reading →
Our contest judge Holly Hughes  wrote these words in choosing Laurie McConnachieâs essay as one of our three winners: This is a deeply moving account of a daughter who lost her mother to a brain tumor when she was in her late 20sâand how she learns to move through grief and open her heart to … Continue reading →
I am pleased to share another essay by a Writing It Real member. âBeginning Again with Tree Spiritsâ illustrates the diverse topics our members write about. Reading Katlainaâs essay will definitely change your relationship to the trees and forests in your towns and counties as well as inspire courage to write about topics you fear … Continue reading →
I met poet, novelist, and playwright Gary Langford through a long time friend of mine who met Gary years ago in Australia when they were both young men. In the years since, Gary has written in many genres, run a University Creative Writing Program, taught theater, and much, much more. Here he breaks down writing … Continue reading →
As Black History Month ends and we have learned more about black religious leaders, scientists, politicians, professors, film directors, sports figures, journalists, poets and authors, among many other professions, those of other ethnicities have had an opportunity to reflect on how learning of the strife of an oppressed group changed the trajectory of their own … Continue reading →
Writing It Real contributor Carol Smallwood is a poet with several volumes to her name, a retired career librarian who has produced books of value to those who direct and run libraries and educational programs, and she is the editor of writing books for new and experienced writers and teachers of writing. In 2018 she … Continue reading →
The relationship began three winters ago. Driving a country road in the early dusk, I hit a deerâor as a knowledgeable friend suggested afterward, a deer hit me. A buck with branching antlers leaped from the trees on one side of the road, attacked the hood of my car with an ear-splitting crunch, then disappeared … Continue reading →
This weekâs article is a second excerpt from Rebecca McClanahanâs instructional book Write Your Heart Out: Exploring & Expressing What Matters To You, published by Walking Stick Press. It originaly appeared in 2003. One of the problems with being a student who is âgood with wordsâ is that you may learn early on how to … Continue reading →
I havenât posted in the Writing It Real category of âWriting Makes a Differenceâ in a while now as Iâve concentrated on writing exercises to keep you inspired. This week, though, I am returning to that category to share Susan Smithâs account of having a heart attack. She wrote this piece because little is discussed … Continue reading →
We praise writing for its voice, but run into problems when we try to describe exactly what it is weâre responding to. Just as we each have an identifiable voice when we speak, there is something we call a writerâs voice that distinguishes his or her work. Faulknerâs fiction sounds different from Hemingwayâs. A Mary … Continue reading →
Essayist, nonfiction author and poet Priscilla Long has given me permission to share an excerpt from her recently released new edition of her already classic book for writers, The Writerâs Portable Mentor. All of Priscillaâs advice is clear and sound. I am grateful for the opportunity to share some of her thinking with Writing It … Continue reading →
This past weekend, I was in conversation with fiction writer and memoirist Nahid Rachlin about her books and writing career. for my radio show on KPTZ ?In Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life.? It had been over a decade since she and I had last held an interview, printed in The Writer?s Chronicle … Continue reading →
This weekâs article by Nancy Lamb is a repost from 2008. It includes information on easy readers as well as on shaping other stories for children (or for any reader, really). Nancy Lamb, author of The Writerâs Guide to Crafting Stories for Children, has edited many books by those hoping to enter the young adult … Continue reading →
Author Beth Bacon is teaching her popular online workshop âWriting for Young Readers ? Words of Honesty, Hope, and Wonderâ for Writing It Real members March 15 â April 12, 2018. When I called Beth recently and asked her how things were going, she was very enthusiastic about a new batch of easy readers she … Continue reading →
Writers write. Writers write to seek and tell truths, whether that is in poems, essays, memoir, fiction or articles. As writers, we must raise our voices in dark times, even when we think few are listening. I recently interviewed journalist Dahr Jamail for my KPTZ FM radio program (the podcast will be entered into the … Continue reading →
There are times in a personâs life when everything is tinted gray and the future looks too dark to step into. Then in one single shift of the universe, something happensâwe turn left, instead of right; we answer the phone, smile at a stranger, or meet an old lover. Something moves. And the light reappears. … Continue reading →
All of us benefit from the memory of a place held dear. Such a memory keeps us breathing; such a memory calms our nerves; such a memory refreshes when lifeâs difficult times enervate us. Read Nancy Lambâs well-drawn description of Cow Creek Canyon, a place she experienced as a child, and then try your hand … Continue reading →
Two weeks ago, I posted an article with writing ideas for getting started on new material and asked those who wanted to do so to send me accounts of the games they have played and enjoyed, especially in childhood. My thanks to Nancy Levinson, author of Moments of Dawn: A Poetic Memoir of Love & … Continue reading →
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an exercise I call ?Find the Motto Writer Within.? Here are three writersâ outcomes from that exercise:The first is by Barbara Furniss, one of the writers I gathered to try out the exercises for?A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery. The second is by Dorothy Ross, a … Continue reading →
I am pleased to share long-time Writing It Real member Mary Ann Payne?s writing in response to the writing exercise I shared last week. Grave Mattersby Mary Ann Payne It?s time to bury the piano. Chop it up in tiny pieces and put it in a deep hole in the backyard next to the cement … Continue reading →
[I will be posting the work of our recent three winners this week and then for the next two weeks. I hope you enjoy their comments about the writing of their work, our contest judge Sharon Byranâs comments, and, of course, the writing. â Ed.] Here is Dorothy Ross on why she is writing the … Continue reading →
[Editorâs note: Sometimes I teach a class for Women on Writing that I call âWriting is a Friend with Extraordinary Benefits.â The following essay by Katherine Clarke is reprinted with permission of the author, is an example of what happens in this class â one writerâs words offering extraordinary benefits for each of us who write.] Like many people … Continue reading →
Joan Leofâs collection of essays Matryoshka: Uncovering Your Many Selves Through Writing Personal Essays and Questions for Reflection is intended to share her personal experience essays in a way that encourages others to write from their experiences. After reading her … Continue reading →
We have two new podcasts ready for you to listen to. They are conversations with Meg Files and with Jack Heffron. It was fun and informative having two of my favorite writing and teaching colleagues as guests this summer on … Continue reading →
Adam L. Diament, the author of Kosher Patents: 101 Ingenious Inventions to Help Jews be Jewish, is a practicing patent attorney in Beverly Hills, California. He earned a B.A. in Religious Studies with an Emphasis in Judaism from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997 and a law degree from the University of San Diego … Continue reading →
âIf Iâd only known what was in this book forty years ago, how much more money would I have made and how fewer problems would I have encountered?â Karen wonders. Isnât that true for all of us in our livesâif we knew what we know now we could have done better at what mattered to … Continue reading →
When Marlene Samuels found a publisher for her deceased motherâs World War II memoir, The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, her editor at Penguin-Berkeley had two conditions. She would have to ensure the accuracy of all the bookâs facts (the names of every town and city in Eastern Europe during the early 1900âs up to … Continue reading →
This book is a big one?in every way. In its 813 beautifully designed pages and over 450 gorgeous photos and images, a story unfolds not only of fine handpress printing but the man who printed works by many great 20th Century writers as well as prepared food for them and others in his own kitchens … Continue reading →
Tarn Wilson delivered this paper for a panel on âHydra-Headed Memoirs & Well-Connected Essaysâ at the 2015 Nonfiction Now conference. I am delighted to have her permission to post her words for Writing It Real readers. Tarnâs lovely memoir is The Slow Farm. She uses her experience writing it to inform other writers about her … Continue reading →
In this excerpt from Jack Heffronâs book project?that combines fiction and nonfiction, youâll notice the strength of Jackâs?scenes and dialog, exactly the craft skills?he?will be teaching this year at the June 9-12 Writing It Real conference. In the book, Jack told me, the protagonist, Jack Finney, is a retired advertising executive who recently has been … Continue reading →
This week, Judy Reeves, author of the new book, Wild Women, Wild Voices, shares her thoughts on writing practice. Here article serves as a good review for all of us who are busy concentrating on revising and publishing and may have begun to overlook the idea of what a writing practice is and offers. She … Continue reading →
Phyllis Washburn sent me a copy of the book sheâd written, Good Morning Sam, which includes many of her husband Ralphâs photos. In photos and words, theirs is the story of the mute swan Sam, whom they named when he accepted them as part of his natural world. Over the years, the couple saved Sam … Continue reading →
As both an accomplished writer and a career librarian, Carol Smallwood knows a lot about what women ask when they wish to learn about the writing and publishing process. Over the years, Iâve received email invitations from Carol asking for contributions to anthologies whose subjects have rung true as extremely useful for women writers. I … Continue reading →
Jody Gentian Bowerâs new book, Jane Eyreâs Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroineâs Story, is sure to change some minds about the path of womenâs literature. I am pleased to post the following interview with Jody. I know readers will find both her thinking and her commitment to the process of creating her … Continue reading →
Robert Epstein has invested years in conceiving and writing books, among them a series of impressive haiku anthologies. This National Poetry Month, I am delighted to post an interview with him that gets to the heart of how haiku connects us to the sacred and demonstrates what we come to poetry for â to understand and to share … Continue reading →
Before embarking on a third revision of A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief, an intense book-length personal narrative, I worked with writer, photographer and shamanic practitioner Pam Hale Trachta for guidance in knowing what I wanted to do in developing my manuscript. Because it is about my sonâs death in … Continue reading →
Not long ago, Writing It Real member Dorothy Ross wrote to me about her newest project â recording the narratives sheâs written about her life for her family to have in the form of audio files. I listened to a few of them and was so pleased to hear her physical voice. I immediately wanted … Continue reading →
Esther Helfgottâs life-long writing habit helped her weather her husband Abeâs diagnosis of Alzheimerâs and the grief of slowly losing their thirty-year partnership. Using writing as a tool to handle this profound life change, she created the moving memoir, Dear Alzheimerâs: A Caregiverâs Diary & Poems. When her husband Abe died, she began writing the … Continue reading →
The following essay by Susan Bono is the title essay from her new collection What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home. We reprint it this week with her permission. To learn more about Susanâs writing and the place of the personal essay in her writing life, please see last weekâs interview. What Have We … Continue reading →
For writer and small press publisher (Tiny Lights) Susan Bono, the last thirty years have mostly been about trying to stay ahead of a husband, growing kids, aging parents, and an eccentric old house, in spite of detours, deadlines, unexpected changes, and inevitable losses. But through it all, sheâs been taking notes. In her collection of … Continue reading →
After reading that Iâd mentioned an interview he did with Marion Woodman in a Writing It Real article, James Kullander contacted me. After reading the whole article, he offered permission to share another essay originally published in the December 2007 issue of The Sun magazine. âMy Marital Statusâ takes a moving look at love and commitment, at what … Continue reading →
Often when I try to write about my mother the same details surface. In my childhood memories she is always busy either working or participating on different committees; when she is home she is tired and does not like to cook. Now that I am an adult, my mother and I talk on the telephone … Continue reading →
Last week we posted Part II of my interview with Tarn Wilson about her memoir The Slow Farm. We talked about different ways of bringing back memories and how to write from a childâs viewpoint as an adult. This week, she shares the way she approaches writing about family members consciously and compassionately way, provides … Continue reading →
Last week we posted the first part of my interview with Tarn Wilson about her memoir The Slow Farm. Tarn and I talked about how she used artifacts to reconstruct the past and how she structured her book. This week Tarn and I discuss the art of remembering. Tarn tells us about how she finds … Continue reading →
I am a person who saves things, from the obviously important letter my father wrote me right before he passed away to the âmight need it somedayâ notes from middle school. I have shoeboxes of unorganized photographs, rocks and shells from past trips sit on my bookshelves, and, rolled in a back closet corner, sit … Continue reading →
Bonnie Roughâs memoir, Carrier, which won the 2011 Minnesota Book Award, includes extensive research via family stories, interviews, pictures, legal records, letters, and more, but it is her compassionate portrayal of her grandfather, Earl, who passed away soon after her birth, that keeps readers turning pages. He lived with hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia (HED), a genetic … Continue reading →
Christine Hemp offers us her thinking about how we may find our prose and poetryâs true subjects followed by a writing exercise for practice and two sample poems. [This article and exercise were originally published in Now Write! Nonfiction: Memoir, Journalism and Creative Nonfiction Exercises from Todayâs Best Writers and Teachers, from Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, edited by Sherry … Continue reading →
I am pleased to publish this interview with award winning memoirist Sue William Silverman about the writing of her newest memoir and her advice to those of us who write from personal experience. The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew, follows two earlier memoirs, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I … Continue reading →
As April and National Poetry Month come to an end, we finish our series of poets on their poems. Stan Rubin, Michael Spence, Nicole Persun and Nancy Levinson have each offered us a poem along with their thoughts about writing it. I follow their work with writing prompts based on their contributions. Stan Sanvel Rubin … Continue reading →
This week I am posting poems by three more poets whose work I have been following. Each has offered words about the creation of the particular poem included. And, as before, youâll find writing ideas from me based on each of the poems. Let these poems live inside of you for a bit after reading … Continue reading →
We present three poets, offering one of their poems along with words about its creation. My writing ideas are each based on one of the poems and are useful whether you are writing poetry or prose.
Itâs National Poetry Month and I am celebrating poets I know whose work I have been following both in their books and by attending readings in my town and surrounding areas. Each of the next weeks, I will publish a poem by each of three of these poets along with their own words about their … Continue reading →
Three accomplished writers have as editors acquired a collection of essays in The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders in which poets explore the way their journeys to foreign lands helped them add to literatureâs great conversation. Susan Rich, one editor of the three, whose newest poetry collection Cloud Pharmacy is just out from … Continue reading →
Our fall/winter writing contest judge, Molly Tinsley, chose âWhy I Write,â a personal essay by Mary Kurtz, as our first-place winner. Molly said in her notes about this essay: âEmotional control of the narrative makes Maryâs experience all the more riveting and poignant. I was swept up by the vivid flow of habitual action interrupted … Continue reading →
Our writing contest guest judge, Molly Tinsley, is now reading and making her selections of three contest winners in the recent Writing It Real contest. While we are waiting for the results, we are reprinting her article about writing memoir. It appeared orignally in the November 2013 issue of Author magazine.  Mollyâs words on writing from … Continue reading →
Sandra Hurtes created a blog, felt she had a book there, and engaged in the process of selecting and shaping the entries and adding to the material to create a book-length account of herself as writer. The result is the very recently published The Ambivalent Memoirist: Obesessions, Digressions, Epiphanies, which has already garnered praise and … Continue reading →
That Crazy Little Thing a debut novel by Kate Bracy has garnered wonderful reviews from readers and critics because of the authorâs writing, the way she has developed her characters and how they explore issues of love â between friends, parents and their children, and adults looking for partners who understand them. Following Kateâs answers … Continue reading →
When you read the following excerpts from Rhonda Wiley-Jonesâ memoir, At Home in the World: Travel Stories of Growing Up and Growing Away, youâll likely remember incidents from your own youth when you learned important things about yourself, perceptions that allowed you to see yourself in new ways. Iâve included a writing exercise to use … Continue reading →
Are you thinking of self-publishing and wondering what the process is like? It never hurts to hear from one who has successfully navigated the process. With humor and self-awareness, Rhonda Wiley-Jones takes us on her journey as writer turned self-publisher. Reading her narrative is like sitting in the chair next to her. When sheâs done … Continue reading →
When Writing It Real member Rhonda Wiley-Jones published her travel/coming-of-age memoir, parts of which she had worked on through Writing It Real contests and editorial help, I was eager to hear what sheâd learned in her process of moving from the initial essays to a book-length manuscript. What follows are her interesting and thoughtful replies … Continue reading →
When my daughter Emily Bender was writing a Valedictorian speech to be delivered at her UC Berkeley graduation, she was nervous about having something worth saying. With all of the demands of her life as a graduating senior, she had mulled the speech over but not found a way of tying things together. The she … Continue reading →
As writers, we are frequently the ones asked to write eulogies for friends and family members. Even if we are not asked, we may feel moved to write eulogies to honor those we loved and then to share our writing with a literary audience. Reading author David Reichâs eulogy for his father and considering the … Continue reading →
On September 29, 2013, Midge Raymond is participating in the launch of Adventure by the Bookâs Author Academy in San Diego. Adventures by the Book, founded by Susan McBeth, offers worldwide opportunities for readers to connect with authorsâ travel and events. The Author Academy, an ongoing series of monthly events for authors, is a new … Continue reading →
If you are preparing a manuscript for publication or creating a blog to build a platform for your work, you will find tips by fiction writer and publisher Midge Raymond extremely useful. This article is excerpted from her recent book in Everyday Book Marketing: Promotion Ideas to Fit Your Regularly Scheduled Life. The Author Photo … Continue reading →
Applying her method of reading as a writer reads to Pam Houstonâs Contents May Have Shifted, Judith Kitchen asks, âSo is this memoir, masked as novel? Or novel, masked as memoir? Thatâs one of the first questions that a reader of this book asks. âWhat does it matter?â you might venture.   Here is our guest authorâs explanation. Reading … Continue reading →
For our community read this past March 2013, the librarians in Port Townsend, where I live, chose Pam Houstonâs novel Contents May Have Shifted, a story, they felt to be about love and freedom in middle age, something dear to the hearts of many in this community. At the top of the month the library … Continue reading →
This week, I am pleased to re-post an excerpt from writer Priscilla Longâs excellent text The Writerâs Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life. I heartily agree with the many readers who find the book one of the most accessible, thorough and useful writing guides theyâve read. We can all benefit … Continue reading →
When otherwise good girl Barbara McNally is caught having an affair (for the second time), her marriage ends within weeks and with it, so does the image she created for her two teenaged girls and the man she married right out of college. In her book Unbridled: A Memoir, Barbara (whose website is here) begins … Continue reading →
My daughter Emily took a trip with her husband, children, and parents-in-law to India, where her husband has many relatives. During the three-week trip, I was very happy to be able to follow her travels through photos and writing she shared on Facebook. Her Facebook posts took a form that made me think of William … Continue reading →
One way to help oneself heal from grief is to offer others honest lessons from experience. In this essay, included in the anthology On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties, Nina Abnee has done so with generosity. âWhat I Learned When My Husband Diedâ is about Ninaâs life and marriage, the end of her  husbandâs life and how during those … Continue reading →
Former romance writer Thelma Zirkelback has two books out now (and a blog) on the subject of widowhood, one an anthology she co-edited of writings by women who have coped with their new life situation (On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties) and the other a memoir about her interfaith marriage and and the loss of … Continue reading →
Nancy Smiler Levinson set herself the goal of writing about what she was living through during her husbandâs diagnosis of Alzheimerâs. The result was a powerful, filled with love, and ultimately affirming memoir, all in free verse, Moments of Dawn: a poetic memoir of love & family, affliction & admiration.  A professional writer for decades, Nancy … Continue reading →
Robert Komishane is a Port Townsend, WA poet who turned in middle age to rap and hiphop for inspiration when he wanted to switch from writing free verse to writing in form. Four and a half yearâs later, heâs still having fun and gaining attention for his efforts. I interviewed Robert via email to learn … Continue reading →
Sandra Hurtes is the author of the essay collection, On My Way To Someplace Else and the chapbook RESCUE. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Poets & Writers, among other publications. You can find links to her work and a link to her new blog, Chasing the Present Moment. … Continue reading →
Have you thought about writing for the stage or about reading plays as a way to understand the role of dialog in moving a story forward and keeping your writing âin sceneâ? If either is true for you, you will find playwright Mara Lathropâs experience and the resources she shares invaluable. If you havenât yet … Continue reading →
After years of writing, editing, publishing authors and teaching, Jack Heffron knows why we get stuck and how to work around that and back into our material. Heâll be teaching with Meg Files and Sheila Bender at our Writing It Real in Nashville April 25-28Â conference. Join us for a chance to work with Jack as … Continue reading →
Creating stories to delight children and help them understand sophisticated social concepts is a primary objective of childrenâs book authors. But it is often hard to cut to the essence of situations in language children understand. Penny Claire Holland had the story for a childrenâs picture book many years ago, but let her manuscript sit … Continue reading →
This excerpt is from Chapter 15 of The Third Law of Motion by Meg Files, published by Anaphora Literary Press, 2011, reprinted here by permission of the author. Lonnie had already started work as an inventory clerk in a new discount store just outside town, and weâd used the Christmas money from Dad for rent and … Continue reading →
This weekâs interview is with my colleague Meg Files about her process for writing The Third Law of Motion, her newest novel and the bookâs impact on its audience. You can study with Meg at our April Writing It Real conference in Nashville or our June Centrum Creative weekend intensive in Port Townsend, WA. Sheila Your … Continue reading →
 âTalking Recklesslyâ is excerpted by permission of the author, Kim Stafford, from his memoir 100 Tricks Any Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared published 2012 by Trinity University Press, San Antonio, TX. When we were young, our father had a habit of abruptly increasing the voltage by announcing, âLetâs talk recklessly!â This meant any … Continue reading →
Memoirs are high on my reading list. Memoirs that tell authorsâ stories of grieving and healing are at the top. This week, I am posting an in-depth interview with writer Kim Stafford, whose brother committed suicide. As a writer, Kim sets out in his book 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do, A Memoir to explore … Continue reading →
Authornomics is an author interview series created by Andrea Hurst and Associates agency. The August 16, 2012 interview I did for the series was chosen as one of their yearâs best. The many good questions the agents there asked gave me the opportunity to discuss writing and the writing life in ways meaningful to me. … Continue reading →
On a recent teaching trip to Southern, CA, I visited with my college friend Cynthia. Among the many things we talked about was her oldest sonâs new self-published book, The Top 10 Jewish⌠. She handed me a copy and from the first words of the introduction, I knew I wanted to learn more about … Continue reading →
Author Nancy Lamb has published two books on writing fiction with Writerâs Digest Books, The Art and Craft of Storytelling: A Comprehenisve Guide to Classic Writing Techniques, from which we present an excerpt this week, as well as The Writerâs Guide to Crafting Stories for Children. She is a master at explaining the elements of … Continue reading →
When an irate reader wrote the editors of Writerâs Digest Magazine because of âincorrectâ grammar I used in a poem, I was concerned. I had written âmy sister and Iâ after a verb: âthe ones my father gave my sister and I.â The reader, a retired English teacher, said the magazine had certainly scraped the … Continue reading →
On August 27, 2010, Suzan Huney began an oral history project with her Aunt Betty Jane Cooper Johnson, her motherâs sister. For many years, the tight knit clan of Cooper family women had celebrated during yearly reunions, but interviewing Aunt Betty meant learning a lot more about the family as well as more about her … Continue reading →
 This spring, I lead my townâs 8th graders in discussions about Pete Hautmanâs young adult novel Blank Confession, a story based on the novel Shane, which is about a mysterious cowboy who changes the lives of a family while working on their ranch for only a short while. In Peteâs story, a boy arrives in … Continue reading →
Susan Rich is a veteran of many writing retreats and served on the selection committee for Hedgebrook Writersâ Retreat. If you are interested in finding a writerâs retreat to spend some time away from home in an environment conducive to writing and sharing your work with other artists in residence, youâll be interested in poet … Continue reading →
Have you wondered about the value of MFA programs or wanted to learn what the MFA candidates learn? Hereâs an opportunity to receive enrichment from a recent MFA candidateâs experienceâAnne has offered loads of links to journals and writers you will want to know about. Sheila I am pleased by the opportunity to talk with … Continue reading →
This week author and publisher Midge Raymond, whose newest book is How to be an Everyday Writer: Tips and Prompts, offers us some of her quickie prompts and answers questions about her career and writing. Sheila Midge, you have succeeded in publishing collections of short stories and novels and you have wonderful nonfiction essays out there. Youâre … Continue reading →
None of us know the full impact of our stories, only that we are compelled to write them. Shanti Elke Bannwart, author of Dancing On One Foot: Growing Up In Nazi Germany, says, âCreating art is dangerous. It strips you naked and stirs the deep waters of self-doubt; it pokes your nose into the gap … Continue reading →
Sometimes we need to be reminded that being a writer is about writing, first and foremost. As writers, we have to sit down and get our words on the page whether or not anyone has asked us to do soâand most often, not having been asked is the case. Â We write to find out more … Continue reading →
Joni Cole, author of Another Bad-Dog Book: Tales of Life, Love, and Neurotic Human Behavior, offers valuable information for writers in her recent interview for Writing It Real members. If you havenât yet, you will want to read an excerpt from her book. Sheila How did you go about writing and collecting these essays? Joni … Continue reading →
When Writing It Real contributor Joni Cole sent me a review copy of her new collection of essays Another Bad-Dog Book: Tales of Life, Love, and Neurotic Human Behavior, I was excited to get started reading. The book proved both funny, sometimes sidesplitting so, and poignant, especially when she writes about her elderly father. This week … Continue reading →
I enjoy exchanging information with those I meet, especially about books and writing. A summer day at the beach with my youngest grandson Rafe led to discovering an interesting writer and later to learning her writing and publishing story. My five-year-old grandson Rafe wanted to connect with two little girls heâd met at camp who … Continue reading →
Our connections to the important places of our lives are deeply personal, based on unique experiences and relationships. At the same time, the feelings that bind us to those places can be shared and understood by most everyone because they are tied to universal human experiences and longings â to the comfort of home, the … Continue reading →
Learning what keeps other writers on task with particular pieces that are difficult to finish affirms for me that as a writer, I must obey the call of the initial inspiration, even if obeying that call means sitting down again and again through draft after draft to find what I was meant to discover. It … Continue reading →
Inspired by the âWhy I Writeâ column in Poets and Writerâs magazine, essayist Sandra Hurtes examined her answer to that question, which is in the title of the following essay that appeared on October 9, 2011 in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Those of us who write, especially those of us who came late to allowing writing … Continue reading →
Many of us who write from personal experience have ideas for columns and features appropriate, we think, for our local newspapers, but we may never have talked with a newspaper editor to find out what things look like from their side of the desk. I became acquainted with Kasia Pierzga, the Whidbey Examinerâs owner, publisher … Continue reading →
I belong to a book promotion group with fiction writer Midge Raymond, author of the short story collection Forgetting English. When she shared the link to a promotional video she and her husband, novelist John Yunker (The Tourist Trail), created, I clicked right over to their YouTube video called âLove in the Time of Amazon.â … Continue reading →
Poet and fiction writer Paula Marie Coomer has written an essay about her road to becoming a writer and to publishing her work. Through her story, you will relate to the persistent internal voice (echoed by those who know your essence) that urges you on and makes you take your writing goals seriouslyâor that finally … Continue reading →
Terry Persun, author of numerous technical articles, poetry books and novels, has published a guidebook that will help any of us who are working with small presses, self-publishing or working to support our book even though it is with a big publisher. Here is an excerpt from Guidebook for Working with Small Independent Publishers. For … Continue reading →
When I was writing the fiction-writing chapter of Creative Writing Demystified, I called upon David Reich to review the chapters, helping me feel secure that I was sharing pertinent and useful information with the bookâs readers. He took on the task of helping me examine tone in writing novels by generously offering first drafts and … Continue reading →
The Seattle7 group of writers has garnered national attention for their work contributing to literary and literacy communities. The attention has resulted not only in strengthening alliances among the writers working together but also in valuable promotion for their books and writing careers. Seattle7 member Kit Bakke, who has contributed several articles to Writing It … Continue reading →
This first day of National Poetry Month, we share a letter from Milwaukee poet Margaret Rozga, whose son was deployed to Afghanistan and wounded there. The poems in her forthcoming poetry collection, Though I Havenât Been to Baghdad, concern her emotional response to her sonâs active duty, the impact of the many stories she heard … Continue reading →
Writing oral histories is a project of the heart. An author is struck with a strong desire to write the life of another in that otherâs words because they find something colorful, endearing and valuable about that personâs experiences. This kind of writing, which contains as little interference as possible from the authorâs updated mind, … Continue reading →
Twenty eleven is the Year of the Chicken around here. The chicken coop is finally finished. Just the fencing is left, and then we can bring some hens home. These will be free-range chickens, with both a fenced-in pasture and a 30âx30Ⲡpredator-proof pavilion. There will be no tiny cages for these gals. The girlfriends, … Continue reading →
As well as life lessons, Janet offers writing lessons in this well-crafted essay — about extended metaphor and about writing from what is happening in one’s life to find insight and resolution. That resolution might be a small or a … Continue reading →
In 2007, we posted an interview with Allison Gilbert about her first book Always Too Soon: Voices of Support For Those Who Have Lost Both Parents, which is a collection of intimate interviews about the journey traveled by those whose parents have both died. This week, we are pleased to present an excerpt from her … Continue reading →
Brenda Miller and Holly J. Hughes, two skillful writers and past contributors to Writing It Real (be sure to click on their names to read their distinguished bios), have written a manuscript aimed at helping writers encourage and pay attention to their writing in the midst of commitments that squelch the meditative state required to … Continue reading →
An interesting email arrived one day recently â a young man from Chicago was hoping Iâd 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 heâd put together, and I … Continue reading →
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 →
[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 â the struggle between the desire to write and all the issues, conflicts and worries that come up at the very … Continue reading →
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 →
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 townâs local newspaper, The Port Townsend Leader, and to writers and many others … Continue reading →
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 →
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 →
After being asked to be a judge for a creative nonfiction contest at Notes & Grace Notes, an online site for writers, I read the editorâs 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 →
Melissa Hartâs memoir Gringa: A Contradictory Childhood is the story of growing up between the polarity of her parentsâ worldviews and the harsh judgment of a dominant culture and surviving. As reader, I was engaged in this tale from the beginning when Hartâs mother leaves her marriage to live in a lesbian relationship and full … Continue reading →
Author Joel M. Vance offers a tightly written essay on tips for writers â ones we shouldnât 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, âI cut the original … Continue reading →
âWe are all already poets in the depths of ourselves â as our image-filled and wildly imaginative dreams show us!â David Richo in Being True to Life When I collected journal entries from contemporary writers for The Writerâs Journal: 40 Contemporary Writers and their Journals, I learned how significant dreams can be for writers. Several … Continue reading →
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 readersâ changing habits and bring the words of authors they admire to the publicâs attention. To publish means, in its … Continue reading →
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 parentsâ lives and read the family heirloom her father treasured â the diary of his great grandfatherâs Civil War experience. Drawn in by the journals … Continue reading →
Meg Waite Claytonâs 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 donât even know what they are yearning for when they first bond over the … Continue reading →
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. SheilaTell me about your writing career â how you … Continue reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Iâve 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 →
This week we present an interview with author Linda C. Wisniewski. Her book Off Kilter: A Womanâs 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 →
Ever since I started writing in earnest and working with other writers, Iâve 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 itâs pretty simple â some stories need to be served straight up. Thatâs non-fiction. Others … Continue reading →
Caroline Arnold has been a contributor to Writing It Real, and recently, she sent me an essay about how one of her early childrenâs 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 youâll get from Chantelleâs energetic words. Her enthusiasm for the process and absolute trust in the ability … Continue reading →
Jack Heffron is one of the most versatile writers I know. Iâve read his short fiction, creative nonfiction, books on writing, books that he has ghost written and books that heâs edited (including my own). Recently, I read some of his interviews and it brought up some questions that I wanted to ask him. SheilaJack, … Continue reading →
How do writers decide what to write about? In âDeath on a Quiet Streetâ, 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 →
[This article first appeared in Lizard, Victoria Universityâs Professional Writing and editing programâs magazine. The University is in Melbourne, Australia where Meg Files did a Doris Leadbetter Teacher Exchange between Pima College and VUâs Diploma Professional Writing and Editing. âed] Writing is a lonely business, Ernest Hemingway said in his 1954 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. … Continue reading →
I met Katrina Hays this past summer at Pacific Lutheran Universityâs Rainier Writersâ Writing Workshopâs (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 âoutside experience.â Last year, Tarn Wilson from … Continue reading →
Shortly after reading Margaret D. McGeeâs 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: SheilaI enjoyed the opening … Continue reading →
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 →
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 isnât often that … Continue reading →
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 →
When Judith Kitchen, who is Assistant Program Director of Pacific Lutheran Universityâs 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 →
[This weekâs article continues the interview Sheila did with writer Nahid Rachlin for the May, 2008 AWP Chronicle. Part one SheilaWhat advice do you have for those writing from painful political and family backgrounds? NahidMy advice is that they should give themselves time to understand it all and not be in the state of grief … Continue reading →
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 Heartâs 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 →
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 →
This year, I have had the delightful experience of working with Tarn Wilson, who is finishing up her MFA this spring from Pacific Lutheran Universityâs Rainer Writing Workshop. Writing It Real subscribers have already benefited from her article on keeping a travel journal; this week, we benefit from her programâs network as she interviews classmate … Continue reading →
Rodney L. Merrill contacted me for an interview about writing from personal experience. He explained that for his doctoral thesis, he is conducting a âresearch 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 →
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 →
This summer, Writing It Real in Port Townsend Writerâs 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 decadeâs worth of the annual poetry anthology Pontoon. I am pleased this week … Continue reading →
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 →
There are a lot of small-world stories in the writing world. Hereâs one of mine: In 2000, I was asked by Writerâs 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, Janiceâs writing was … Continue reading →
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 secretaryâher view into the work world and the world of those who work … Continue reading →
This week we begin a series on self-publishing, the outgrowth of interviews Iâve 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 →
 SheilaOlivia, 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 fragmentary … Continue reading →
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 wasnât too long before she decided to create what she calls flavors to the product. One of them is LifeJournal for Writers, for … Continue reading →
Editorâs Note â To read some of Michael Dylan Welchâs Tanka poetry, click here Youâve heard of haiku, but did you know that itâs 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 →
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 sheâd come to research for a personal essay, I immediately admired her commitmentâ many people believe only novels and other book length … Continue reading →
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 bookâs contributors are famous (Rosanne Cash, Ice-T, Geraldine Ferraro, Mariel Hemingway) and others are not, but all have important perceptions to share … Continue reading →
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 doesnât stick to what our teachers taught us. Luckily, linguists are on our side with their delight in documenting how living languages evolve. … Continue reading →
Stan Sanvel Rubinâs 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.â âMachado Right from the start, in the beat between two awakes, we are roused as if by a hypnotist who is letting us … Continue reading →
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 →
At this past summerâs Writing It Real in Port Townsend writerâs conference, Susan Rich spoke to the conference group about building a writerâs community and finding a place in the world based on oneâs passion for poetry. This week, Iâve interviewed her about the development of her books of poems and the ways in which … Continue reading →
Last week, we shared a chapter from Joni Coleâs 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 →
A few months ago, I received an email request to help spread the word about Scrap Paper Pressâs worldwide call for creative writing submissions from teens. I went to the projectâs 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 →
Joan Weimerâs second memoir, Awestruck: A Skepticâs 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 →
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 →
This article originally appeared in The Writerâs 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. âNovelist Carol Shields Write what you know!â is the advice given freely to writers not … Continue reading →
This weekâs article begins with an excerpt from Mimi Schwartzâs memoir, Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed. Entitled âJimmy and June, â this second essay in the collection illustrates the way Mimi Schwartz writes about ordinary life to âget it just right,â a phrase her husband used describing his reaction when he first read it at … Continue reading →
SheilaLast 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. Iâd like to … Continue reading →
Last week, you read Michael Welchâs instruction on writing haiku. This week youâll learn more about haiku and publishing from a transcript of my email interview with him. It includes the treat of some of Michaelâs poems at the end as well as links to more of his writing and several sites of interest. Sheila … Continue reading →
We pick up where the email thread left off last week. Sheila starts: I wanted to respond to what Lisa said: âAnd I wanted to raise this idea about how writing has repercussions that go far beyond whether you are published or not,â What we spend our days writing affects us in many ways. If … Continue reading →
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 →
Hannah Goodman is the author of My Sisterâs 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 →
Jack Heffronâs simple, masterful writing prompt will have you realizing how much content you have to write about in no timeâwell, 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 →
Why connect the writing of poetry with an appreciation of good food? On first consideration, the juxtaposition of poems and pastries might seem frivolous. Isnât poetry sustenance for something more than the physical body? Recently, I taught a workshop at a local college advertised as âO Taste and Write: Food Poems,â and perhaps a subtext … Continue reading →
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 →
About seven years ago, Sheila agreed to judge a personal essay contest for a writing magazine. Her task was to choose and rank the ten top essays among the submissions. Told to expect about 1,000 essays, she was surprised when 3,500 showed up at our door with only three weeks to choose the winners. I … Continue reading →
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 angelâs wing. âIt could be only a birdâs wing,â she … Continue reading →
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 →
Earlier this year, Hannah R. Goodman emailed me about her book, My Sisterâs 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 →
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 newspaperâs editors and telling her about Como, the one-year-old rescue dog his family had adopted, … Continue reading →
Jack Heffron was my editor at Writerâs 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 heâd read Writing Personal Essays:How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page, my second book on writing and the … Continue reading →
A few years back, I received an email from Christopher Buckley requesting permission to reprint a review Iâd written in an anthology of work by and about the late poet Larry Levis. I was thrilled to share what Iâd written many years earlier for Poet Lore, a literary magazine in the Washington DC area. Iâd … Continue reading →
I have been enjoying humor writer Judy Gruenâs 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 →
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 →
After reading essayist and editor Judith Kitchenâs observations about effective essay endings for last weekâs 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 →
In âEndings,â an instructional essay for the literary journal Fourth Genre, Fall, 2001, Judith Kitchen asserts that in a piece of creative nonfiction, âthe building of thought is what interests the reader.â âWe look as much for how an author approaches a subject,â she writes, âas for the subject itself.â In reading and writing essays, … Continue reading →
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, âIf you canât do it in the journal, what … Continue reading →
This past spring, The Seattle Times ran a review of Barbara Sjoholmâs new book The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace OâMalley 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 →
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 →
After years of spreading the word far and wide about reading and drumming up interest in books and literature, Nancy Pearl, the Seattle Libraryâs Director of Programming and Director for the Washington Center for the Book, has a new book out herself. Itâs entitled Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason. At … Continue reading →
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 pressâs well-designed, handsome books, David asked if he could read me a poem from one. âOf course,â I said, and he read from … Continue reading →
Writers often use prompts to help them come up with original ways of opening and organizing their work. Whenever I dip into The Writerâs Idea Book and The Writerâs 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 →
Editorâs Note: All the poems printed in this article are a collaboration of the two authors, James Bertolino and Anita K. Boyle. âHard Candyâ first appeared in the print journal Cranky, No. 1, 2004 as did James Bertolinoâs instructional essay on poetic collaboration;Â âOne Dayâ appeared in StringTown, No.6, 2003 and âOn Edgeâ appeared in … Continue reading →
This weekâs 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 →
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. Hereâs how she writes … Continue reading →
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 →
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 festivalâs 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 →
I met Joelle Fraser at the 2003 Whidbey Island Writerâs 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 →
Robyn Conley and I met at a time when we both had books on journaling newly out from Walking Stick Press. Robynâs role at the Society of Southwestern Authorsâ 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 →
Those of us who write from personal experience often think that weâd 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 →
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 writersâ conferences in the US and visiting Richardâs home state of Montana. All of us at the Colorado Mt. Writersâ Workshop … Continue reading →
As the creator and director of Poets & Writersâ 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 →
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 →
I had lunch recently with novelist and screenwriter Robert Morgan Fisher, who supervises the online screenwriting program at Writerâs 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 →
Novelist and poet Meg Files recently spoke on a panel at the Associated Writing Programâs 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 →
As I prepare the following interview with Sebastian Matthews, Iâm 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 →
After our initial correspondence, posted on 12/12/02, author Janice Eidus answered some more questions I posed based on what sheâd 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 →
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 Eidusâ fiction and her teaching for many years now and in 1997, I invited her to contribute to my book, The Writerâs Journal: 40 Writers and Their Journals, published … Continue reading →
Iâve 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 Iâm also pointing out dangling modifiers and suggesting alternative wording. I know from looking at my own drafts and … Continue reading →