[When writer Philip Kenney noted in the introduction to his book, So Many Surprises: Essays 2013 — 2023, exactly when he came to know he was a writer, I realized it would be interesting to hear more such stories so … Continue reading →
From our tiny second-floor apartment, the orange sun slipping past the horizon cast a harvest glow onto the rows of crops fanning out from the farmhouse. Sitting for Francesca’s simple farm dinner had settled an ache into my joints, and … Continue reading →
[In this essay about writing and revising his memoir, author Bill Thorness generously shares his experience creating and publishing All Roads Lead to Rome: Searching for the End of My Father’s War –ED] Inspired by a cache of letters from … Continue reading →
This month I am delighted to share a recent interview I had by email with Writing It Real member Merle R. Saferstein about a book project dear to her heart. I think readers will be inspired not only by the … Continue reading →
Writing It Real contributor Philip Kenney has a new novel out, The Mercy Dialogues, and this month I “talked” via email with him about the premise of the novel, his reason for writing it, and what that experience was like. … Continue reading →
Writing It Real Contributor Judy Gruen has a second memoir out. I had the lucky experience of interviewing her about how she came to write her memoir, Writing Bylines and Blessings, Overcoming Obstacles, Striving for Excellence and Redefining Success, and … Continue reading →
I am grieving today. This week has brought a firestorm of events that are devastating for an elder with daughters and grandchildren. The January 6 hearings have been riveting, dignified, terrifying and clarifying. If we don’t clear out all the … Continue reading →
Poet and cat lover, David D. Horowitz hatched the idea of creating an anthology of cat poems he would call Purr and Yowl: An Anthology of Poetry About Cats. Putting together any book of poems, whether one of one’s own … Continue reading →
Ruth Linnea Whitney is a novelist who has lived in Port Townsend, WA, on the Olympic Peninsula for decades. She is also a woman who has traveled extensively to third world countries with her doctor husband, who many times over … Continue reading →
Tarn Wilson tells us: When I was in my twenties, I joined a writing group of more experienced writers, which, for fifteen years, felt like having my own creative writing graduate program. Mike Karpa was a founding member of that … Continue reading →
The Fog Casey wandered the Port Authority bus terminal, newly disembarked off her bus from Memphis and feeling like midtown Manhattan had punched her in the face. A guy approached. The man looked like a farmworker who’d wandered in straight … Continue reading →
On a summertime road trip between Newport, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, I started writing a book with my friend. As we sped up I-5 I sang to the highway exit signs: “The book you hold in your hands is a … Continue reading →
This week we are hearing from author and Writing It Real member Morgan Baker. You can listen to her reading an excerpt of her memoir Emptying the Nest: How to Get Better at Saying Goodbyes during an interview with Hippocampus … Continue reading →
This month’s publishing article and book excerpt comes from Writing It Real member Rhonda Wiley-Jones. Kirkus Reviews summarizes her book Song of Herself, Atmosphere Press, September 22, this way: Wiley-Jones packs her narrative with a plethora of captivating themes and … Continue reading →
Dorothy Ross’s memoir, NOT Just a Secretary, holds all the alertness and wry humor she evidenced during her years at work and in retirement. She shares a spirited description of getting her book written and then out there followed by … Continue reading →
One afternoon as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and recovering from a near-brush with heatstroke, an idea for a short story popped into my head: What if a teenager in, say, the year 2039 started railing against … Continue reading →
For decades I jotted down phrases that captured images that came to me—a dollhouse staircase, a cat lapping sunlit water, or icicles reflecting a sunset like jeweled daggers—then stuffed them in folders or slid them in desk drawers. I never … Continue reading →
Philip Kenney and I met pre-pandemic at a Northwest Writers Association Conference in Seattle when we presented on the same panel. I was introduced to his book The Writer’s Crucible: Meditations on Emotion, Being and Creativity, which had been a … Continue reading →
Writing While Masked: Reflections on 2020 and Beyond By Mary Ann Gonzales, Tyson Greer, Wanda Herndon, Laura Celise Lippman, Jane Spalding, Suzanne Tedesko, and Beth Weir, Published by Washington State University Imprint Basalt Books, 2022 Description from the publisher’s website: … Continue reading →
The how, when, where, and why of the process – (the who is my “collected” writing selves) Early in 2021, a full year into the pandemic, I signed up to listen to Canadian writer and self-described writing “mid-wife,” Traci Skuce … Continue reading →
Exiled South is a dual time-line novel, that poses the question, can a contemporary woman’s international quest heal family wounds going back to the Civil War? After a personal tragedy, Lizbeth Gordon, returns to her home state of South Carolina … Continue reading →
My Path to Publication of Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life from Shanti Arts Publishing, September 2022 Premise My book, Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life, is a memoir-in-essays, following the examples of David Lazar’s Body of Brooklyn and Harrison … Continue reading →
On the Creation of Green River Saga, a Novel by Michael W. Shurgot and Rick O’Shea Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, April 2020 When I retired as Professor of Humanities from South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia in 2006, I … Continue reading →
I am asking for Writing It Real members to write articles about their book creation and publishing experience. We kick off the series this first month of 2023 with an article about the story behind the publication of Telling Tales … Continue reading →
Each year, exactly two weeks before Hanukkah and beginning the year our family immigrated to the U.S.A., Aunt Esther and Mom began their debates. We had moved to a suburb only a fifteen-minute drive from Esther, my mother’s sister. The … Continue reading →
I write this on Tuesday, the 20th of December 2022, the third of eight days, along with other Jews, that I will celebrate the holiday of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights. Each night at sundown we light the candles on … Continue reading →
Each holiday season I buy about six to eight gift cards, redeemable at a coffee shop or bookstore. I tape one gift card to a greeting card and mail it to a particular friend. The greeting cards are not holiday … Continue reading →
I am excited to introduce you again to author and poet Alison Townsend. I have been reading her beautiful lyric prose and poetry for years. I admire her sense of place and nature in what she writes. With the publication … Continue reading →
It was the year I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, leaving the boarding school where I’d been teaching in western Massachusetts. I was living in an apartment – actually, the 2nd floor of an old home that had been carved into … Continue reading →
In autumn turkeys grace the field in front of our house almost daily. Lately, these visitors, often up to twenty-five, have come closer to the house, maybe to forage fallen apples from the tree in the front yard. Or maybe … Continue reading →
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, hey, you guys, Mom made seven pies this time, two cherry, two apple and three pumpkin! She made cinnamon rolls and bread, too.” We had to wait to eat until Uncle Mac, Aunt … Continue reading →
In mid-October 1969, my twin daughters were born a month early. After a few days in the hospital, we brought them home. What followed were days and nights filled with them drinking only an ounce or two of formula before … Continue reading →
This month, I am pleased to introduce you to Florida author Merle R. Saferstein and her goal of helping others create legacy writing. She was director of educational outreach at the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center in Miami, FL and … Continue reading →
My husband was a schoolteacher and we lived in a very small town. He didn’t want our children trick-or-treating and I said we had to do something special for Halloween. So, we compromised. We seldom ate dinner at a restaurant … Continue reading →
40 minutes with Marcia Breece of Publishing Partners in Conversation with Sheila Bender offers writers a complete understanding of what a book designer and publishing partner can do for anyone interested in self-publishing. The information is also useful for small … Continue reading →
Things that Go Grrrr in the Night by Marlene Samuels One particular year, Beggar’s Night fell on a Saturday. As luck would have it, it also was the Saturday evening our parents had, uncharacteristically, left us home alone longer than … Continue reading →
Happier Halloweens by Julie Trout Jake was happy with any holiday, but Kirsten had a favorite. Halloween. We dressed up, carved pumpkins, baked goodies, ate candy, and decorated the house with spiderwebs and green glitter. I loved watching my kids … Continue reading →
It Wasn’t Easy Being Green by Pat LaPointe Many people might call Mom “creative.” As a witness and often the “victim” of her creativity, I would define it as “wacko.” One would need no more proof of this distinction than … Continue reading →
Memoir: First Grade by Julia Blocksma My enthusiasm knew no bounds: I was going to start first grade, in a school in America! After years in Lahore, Pakistan, where my father, a surgeon, had helped start a hospital just after World … Continue reading →
I am pleased to publish my interview with author Kathy Harmon-Luber, a colleague, poet, and non-fiction writer whose book will touch many. Hearing from her on how she approached writing her book, organized her effort to write it, and then … Continue reading →
For our last week’s August posting two more Writing It Real members have sent in short essays about summer memories. I know you will relate and remember your own summer games and family time as you read. It is so … Continue reading →
My Parents’ House by Suzy Beal This twelve-hour drive begins in the dark hours of the early morning. Little girls strapped in their sleeping bags in the VW van, puppy at their feet in her box. Did I remember their … Continue reading →
Outcomes By Judy Kvinsland The summer that I turned six years old, my parents bought our family home, a fifty-year-old shingled craftsman perched on a hillside in tiny Harper, WA on the Kitsap peninsula mainland, about seven miles from the … Continue reading →
Last week I begged for more essays and here are three generously shared by Writing It Real members for our post this week. Thank you three! Love Anyway by Sandra Hurtes It was a hot night in August 1969. My … Continue reading →
Meeting My Sister in the Big Easy For Maurine By Nancy Levinson It’s a sauna not inside outside it’s June in New Orleans after all yet my younger sister and I are weathering the stifling air laughing at vanilla … Continue reading →
Writing It Real member David D. Horowitz offers his memories of playing softball and baseball as a child. We learn and remember that even our best memories can be tinged by the experience of difficult situations. Whether your own memories … Continue reading →
When times become threatening, dangerous, and oppressive, we must write to show our humanity and influence others to do the same. Writing It Real member David D. Horowitz shares his thoughts. I hope that encourages others to take to the … Continue reading →
I was delighted to receive submissions over this past week from Mona Anderson and David D. Horowitz, and I very much hope for more Writing It Real member writing to post next week as we close out May. It has … Continue reading →
And we wind up National Poetry Month with two more short essays on impactful poems chosen by Writing It Real members. It has been a month of learning about poems new to us and poems to revisit. Thank you to … Continue reading →
Thank you, Judy Kvinsland, for reminding us of just how important poetry is when we are grieving. The healing it offers deep into our experience is incomparable. And in times of need, it is miraculous that poetry reaches out to … Continue reading →
One of my Favorite Poems is “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. It is too long to include in this letter but may be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43187/the-highwayman. Hearing it read was the first time that I understood the power of poetry. … Continue reading →
We wrap up our epistolary writing for March with a joyful letter from Richard Elam about his writing life at age 93. Richard Elam Writes to My Husband and Me About His Writing Since He Moved from the Northwest to … Continue reading →
Whether we want to explain ourselves to readers and editors and thereby to ourselves or use what we lament about our publishing process to help others along the path in publishing, writing about it helps us as writers and builds … Continue reading →
This week we post two letters by Writing It Real members about why they have or are writing their books, one by member Desiree Woodland to the people she hopes will read her book because of their contact with young … Continue reading →
March epistolary essays have begun arriving. This week enjoy two Writing It Real members’ letters to their books’ audiences. Whether you are writing to explain yourself to your audience (and thus to yourself) when it comes to the book you … Continue reading →
Here are three more epistolary works to round out our February posts. I hope you will leave the author comments at the article’s end and go to the other postings from February to read even more from Writing It Real … Continue reading →
Our February epistolary writing posts continue this week.! I am grateful to Marlene Samuels and Kurt VanderSluis (co-founder of Writing it Real) for their pieces, Marlene’s to her mother, and Kurt’s to his father. Each piece is poignant and addresses … Continue reading →
We are off to a good start for our February epistolary writing! I am grateful to David Horowitz for writing a piece for us to post this week. I also tried my hand at writing in this form and am … Continue reading →
Introduction As a poet and essayist, my canvas is life. Its array of hues, emotions, and experiences come together to form a symphony of words. Each verse, a story, and each sentence, a testament to life’s manifold beauty. But the … Continue reading →
This week we finish off our January postings with two more open letters to those who tried to discourage our writing. I think you will enjoy these two and hope you catch up on reading the others posted all month. … Continue reading →
I am so happy to be posting two more letters to those who discouraged you as writers. I know we all resonate with these situations. And again, I hope to see more of these letters in my inbox by 1/25 … Continue reading →
This week’s writings come to us via members Howard Tanzman and Julie Hayward-Trout. You will relate and you will chuckle after you’ve read them both, and who doesn’t need to feel affirmed and amused to balance the ship of authorship? … Continue reading →
This month we have three examples so far of letters to persons or entities who have tried to dampen enthusiasm for writing with criticism, by limiting opportunities or by nurturing self-doubt. Thank you Writing It Real members David D. Horowitz, … Continue reading →
This week’s writings come from Cyndi Lloyd, Amy Muscoplat, and Lizbeth Hartz. I hope you enjoy these three and have enjoyed all of those from the past three weeks. Merry Christmas! Dear Mrs. Claus by Cyndi Lloyd 12 Dec. 2021 … Continue reading →
This week’s Dear Santa writings come from Nancy Levinson, Christy Schwan, Barbara Simmons, and Mona Anderson. I hope you enjoy reading them. Nancy Levinson, Dear Santa Dear Santa (s) I am scrambling through photo albums and shoeboxes of collected letters, … Continue reading →
December 2021 brings to Writing It Real adult letters to Santa from members who contributed their thoughts, memories, and requests to the icon of Christmas for children and the parents who helped them believe in a beneficent universal spirit. It … Continue reading →
Authors Brenda Miller and Julie Marie Wade have published a book of collaborative essays rich in imagery and music. Published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center, Telephone: essays in two voices is, according to award-winning poet and essayist, Hanif Abdurraqib, … Continue reading →
I was very fortunate to receive my copy of Tarn Wilson’s new book, In Praise of Inadequate Gifts, a Memoir in Essays the day before I left for 11 days of wandering beaches along the Oregon Coast. On the road … Continue reading →
I am so pleased to share news of Brenda Miller’s new book, A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form, available now for pre-order ahead of the July 13 release date. She has answered questions I posed to her and … Continue reading →
Earlier this spring, I received a review copy of Writing the Novella by Sharon Oard Warner, and I continue to pore over it. I have loved many novellas in my time, often without even realizing they are novellas. Warner’s method … Continue reading →
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 history’s 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 wasn’t 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. Helen’s essay “Taking Notes: Assisted Living” was a winner in Writing It Real’s 2012 … Continue reading →
Last week, we posted Chapter 40 of Jennifer Jamieson Woods’ autobiographical novel No Guarantees. This week’s post is an interview with the author about writing the novel she needed to write. Sheila Jennifer, thank you for sharing the story of … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
This month’s 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 … Continue reading →
You may have already read Maya Smith’s 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 … 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 … 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 hearts–how and why we write. EBook Formats We have 3 different formats. Which ones you choose depends … Continue reading →
When I received a review copy of Take Daily As Needed, Kathryn Trueblood’s “novel in stories” from University of New Mexico press, I dove right into reading it. A novel in stories sounded a lot like how I often advocate … Continue reading →
Introduction to an Excerpt from Tell it Slant (Available from Powell’s 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
As I wrote last week, I feel lucky to have recently had journalist Amy Hewes on my KPTZ FM radio program, “In Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life.” Here’s the link to listen to our conversation. In it, Amy … Continue reading →
I was lucky enough to have recently had journalist Amy Hewes on my KPTZ FM radio program, “In Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life.” Here’s the link to listen to our conversation. In it, Amy explains how she goes … Continue reading →
Our guest judge Holly Hughes, wrote this about Nancy Lamb’s essay: In this essay, the narrator recalls her first visit to Martin’s Ranch in the red rock canyons high above Santa Fe and her first experience with the landscape as … Continue reading →
Our contest judge Holly Hughes wrote these words in choosing Laurie McConnachie’s 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 … Continue reading →
I am pleased to share another essay by a Writing It Real member. “Beginning Again with Tree Spirits” illustrates the diverse topics our members write about. Reading Katlaina’s essay will definitely change your relationship to the trees and forests in … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
The relationship began three winters ago. Driving a country road in the early dusk, I hit a deer–or as a knowledgeable friend suggested afterward, a deer hit me. A buck with branching antlers leaped from the trees on one side … Continue reading →
This week’s article is a second excerpt from Rebecca McClanahan’s 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 … Continue reading →
I haven’t posted in the Writing It Real category of “Writing Makes a Difference” in a while now as I’ve concentrated on writing exercises to keep you inspired. This week, though, I am returning to that category to share Susan … Continue reading →
We praise writing for its voice, but run into problems when we try to describe exactly what it is we’re responding to. Just as we each have an identifiable voice when we speak, there is something we call a writer’s … 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 Writer’s Portable Mentor. All of Priscilla’s advice is clear and sound. … 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 … Continue reading →
This week’s 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 Writer’s Guide to Crafting … Continue reading →
Author Beth Bacon is teaching her popular online workshop “Writing for Young Readers ? Words of Honesty, Hope, and Wonder” for Writing It Real members March 15 – April 12, 2018. When I called Beth recently and asked her how … 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 … Continue reading →
There are times in a person’s life when everything is tinted gray and the future looks too dark to step into. Then in one single shift of the universe, something happens—we turn left, instead of right; we answer the phone, … 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 life’s difficult times enervate us. Read Nancy Lamb’s well-drawn description of … 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 … Continue reading →
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an exercise I call ?Find the Motto Writer Within.? Here are three writers’ outcomes from that exercise: The first is by Barbara Furniss, one of the writers I gathered to try out the … 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 Matters by Mary Ann Payne It?s time to bury the piano. Chop it up in … 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 Byran’s comments, and, of … Continue reading →
[Editor’s note: Sometimes I teach a class for Women on Writing that I call “Writing is a Friend with Extraordinary Benefits.” The following essay by Katherine Clarke is reprinted with permission of the author, is an example of what happens … Continue reading →
Joan Leof’s 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 … Continue reading →
“If I’d 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?” Karen wonders. Isn’t that true for all of us in our lives—if … Continue reading →
When Marlene Samuels found a publisher for her deceased mother’s 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 book’s facts (the … 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 … Continue reading →
Tarn Wilson delivered this paper for a panel on “Hydra-Headed Memoirs & Well-Connected Essays” at the 2015 Nonfiction Now conference. I am delighted to have her permission to post her words for Writing It Real readers. Tarn’s lovely memoir is … Continue reading →
In this excerpt from Jack Heffron’s book project?that combines fiction and nonfiction, you’ll notice the strength of Jack’s?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 … 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 … Continue reading →
Phyllis Washburn sent me a copy of the book she’d written, Good Morning Sam, which includes many of her husband Ralph’s photos. In photos and words, theirs is the story of the mute swan Sam, whom they named when he … 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, I’ve received email invitations from Carol asking for … Continue reading →
Jody Gentian Bower’s new book, Jane Eyre’s Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine’s Story, is sure to change some minds about the path of women’s literature. I am pleased to post the following interview with Jody. I know … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
Not long ago, Writing It Real member Dorothy Ross wrote to me about her newest project — recording the narratives she’s written about her life for her family to have in the form of audio files. I listened to a … Continue reading →
Esther Helfgott’s life-long writing habit helped her weather her husband Abe’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s 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 … 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 Susan’s writing and the place of … 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, … Continue reading →
After reading that I’d 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 … 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 … 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 child’s viewpoint as an adult. This week, … 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 … 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 “might need it someday” notes from middle school. I have shoeboxes of unorganized photographs, rocks and shells … Continue reading →
Bonnie Rough’s 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 … Continue reading →
Christine Hemp offers us her thinking about how we may find our prose and poetry’s 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 … 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 … 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 … 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, you’ll find writing ideas from me based on each … 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.
Continue reading →It’s 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 … 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 literature’s great conversation. Susan Rich, … Continue reading →
Our fall/winter writing contest judge, Molly Tinsley, chose “Why I Write,” a personal essay by Mary Kurtz, as our first-place winner. Molly said in her notes about this essay: “Emotional control of the narrative makes Mary’s experience all the more … 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. … 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 … Continue reading →
That Crazy Little Thing a debut novel by Kate Bracy has garnered wonderful reviews from readers and critics because of the author’s writing, the way she has developed her characters and how they explore issues of love — between friends, … Continue reading →
When you read the following excerpts from Rhonda Wiley-Jones’ memoir, At Home in the World: Travel Stories of Growing Up and Growing Away, you’ll likely remember incidents from your own youth when you learned important things about yourself, perceptions that … 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. … 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 she’d learned in her process of moving from … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
On September 29, 2013, Midge Raymond is participating in the launch of Adventure by the Book’s Author Academy in San Diego. Adventures by the Book, founded by Susan McBeth, offers worldwide opportunities for readers to connect with authors’ travel and … 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 … Continue reading →
Applying her method of reading as a writer reads to Pam Houston’s Contents May Have Shifted, Judith Kitchen asks, “So is this memoir, masked as novel? Or novel, masked as memoir? That’s one of the first questions that a reader of this … Continue reading →
For our community read this past March 2013, the librarians in Port Townsend, where I live, chose Pam Houston’s novel Contents May Have Shifted, a story, they felt to be about love and freedom in middle age, something dear to … Continue reading →
This week, I am pleased to re-post an excerpt from writer Priscilla Long’s excellent text The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life. I heartily agree with the many readers who find the book one … 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 … 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 … 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. “What I Learned When My Husband Died” is … 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 … Continue reading →
Nancy Smiler Levinson set herself the goal of writing about what she was living through during her husband’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. The result was a powerful, filled with love, and ultimately affirming memoir, all in free verse, Moments of Dawn: a … 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 year’s later, he’s still … 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 … 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 “in scene”? If either is true for you, you will … 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. He’ll be teaching with Meg Files and Sheila Bender at our Writing It … Continue reading →
Creating stories to delight children and help them understand sophisticated social concepts is a primary objective of children’s book authors. But it is often hard to cut to the essence of situations in language children understand. Penny Claire Holland had … 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 … Continue reading →
This week’s interview is with my colleague Meg Files about her process for writing The Third Law of Motion, her newest novel and the book’s impact on its audience. You can study with Meg at our April Writing It Real conference … Continue reading →
“Talking Recklessly” 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 … Continue reading →
Memoirs are high on my reading list. Memoirs that tell authors’ 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 … 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 year’s best. The many good questions the agents there asked gave … 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 son’s new self-published book, The Top 10 Jewish… . She handed me a copy and … Continue reading →
Author Nancy Lamb has published two books on writing fiction with Writer’s 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 Writer’s … Continue reading →
When an irate reader wrote the editors of Writer’s Digest Magazine because of “incorrect” grammar I used in a poem, I was concerned. I had written “my sister and I” after a verb: “the ones my father gave my sister … Continue reading →
On August 27, 2010, Suzan Huney began an oral history project with her Aunt Betty Jane Cooper Johnson, her mother’s sister. For many years, the tight knit clan of Cooper family women had celebrated during yearly reunions, but interviewing Aunt … Continue reading →
This spring, I lead my town’s 8th graders in discussions about Pete Hautman’s 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 … Continue reading →
Susan Rich is a veteran of many writing retreats and served on the selection committee for Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat. If you are interested in finding a writer’s retreat to spend some time away from home in an environment conducive to … Continue reading →
Have you wondered about the value of MFA programs or wanted to learn what the MFA candidates learn? Here’s an opportunity to receive enrichment from a recent MFA candidate’s experience–Anne has offered loads of links to journals and writers you … 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 … 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, “Creating art is dangerous. It strips you … 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 so–and … 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 haven’t yet, you will want to read an excerpt … 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, … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
Inspired by the “Why I Write” column in Poets and Writer’s magazine, essayist Sandra Hurtes examined her answer to that question, which is in the title of the following essay that appeared on October 9, 2011 in the Philadelphia Inquirer. … 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 … 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, … 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 … 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 … 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 book’s readers. He took on the … 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 … 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 Haven’t Been to Baghdad, concern her … 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 other’s words because they find something colorful, endearing and valuable about that person’s experiences. This … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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, … 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 — the struggle between the desire … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 editor’s mission statement and was impressed with the venue for writers seeking peer response and … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
“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 … 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 readers’ changing habits and bring … 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 parents’ lives and read the family heirloom her father treasured … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 children’s books began as gardening observations with her children. We will be posting an excerpt from that … 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 … 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 … 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 you’ll get … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
[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] … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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, … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
[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 … 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 Heart’s Desire (City Lights), and a collection of short stories, … 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 … 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 University’s Rainer Writing Workshop. Writing It Real subscribers have already benefited from her article on keeping … 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 “research study on how skilled personal essay writers go about writing personal essays and how this … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 wasn’t too long before she decided to create … Continue reading →
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 … 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 she’d come to research for a personal … 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 book’s contributors are famous (Rosanne Cash, Ice-T, … 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 doesn’t stick to what our teachers taught us. … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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. … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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, … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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. Isn’t poetry sustenance for something more than the physical body? Recently, I taught a workshop at … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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. … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … 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 Library’s Director of Programming and Director for the Washington Center for the Book, has a new book … 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 press’s well-designed, handsome books, David asked if he … 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 Writer’s Idea Book and The Writer’s Idea Workshop by Jack Heffron, I find help for inventing and … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … 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 … 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 festival’s book fair. In April of each year, he mans the booth at … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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. … Continue reading →
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 … 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 writers’ conferences in the US and … Continue reading →
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 … 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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
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 … 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 Eidus’ fiction and her teaching for many years now and in 1997, I invited … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →