[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 →
Years ago, I was flying Southwest Airlines from Seattle to Tucson where I was going to teach a weekend writing class. Southwest Airlines gave boarding passes at the gate, first come, first serve, and then loaded their planes in boarding … 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Dear Mother, Dear Father, Dear Sister, Dear Brother, Dear Grandmother, Dear Grandfather, Dear Aunt, Dear Uncle, Dear Friend, Dear Neighbor, Dear Librarian, Dear Doctor, Dear Professor, Dear Roommate, Dear EX, Dear College Advisor, Dear Therapist— Who in your life had … Continue reading →
Recently, I was going through a box of saved drafts from decades ago. I had forgotten about the box and the poems inside. But the pandemic-induced itch to go through papers and clean up my studio had me in its … 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
The list is endless, of course, but here are some of my favorites. First, four more podcasts from the Writing It Real archives and then seven more resources I’ve learned about and very much enjoyed recently. My hope is that … Continue reading →
Every month, two of my 30-minute interviews with writers air on KPTZ 91.9 FM. Over many years now, I have interviewed not only well-published poets, journalists, novelists, memoirists and other creative nonfiction writers, but those who are at the beginnings … Continue reading →
NINE TRAVEL JOURNALING EXERCISES Exercise 1 – Ask For What You Want As one of my first entries, I set goals or ask for what I want from a trip. The activities are slightly different: setting goals implies I have … Continue reading →
[Summer often means travel and/or entertaining guests who have traveled to see you. Often times, we think of this as taking time away from our writing, but keeping a travel journal can keep us writing during our travels and during … Continue reading →
How do we move our writing and characters in time and space without slowing our readers down and certainly without confusing them? We must learn to stop doing what I call “taking the reader down the hall,” filling in the … 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 →
It’s time for some post-New Year’s inspiration so I am reposting a slightly updated article that is full of quotes to inspire and approaches to creating new material from that inspiration. Thirteen years ago, my grandson Toby turned three. All … Continue reading →
Writing poetry, no matter what genre you usually work in, is truly an experience of re-creating a self. In writing poems from experience and from meditative and reflective moments, you become the maker of something that builds increased intimacy with … 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 →
Tuesday, as I waited for election returns, I thought of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” written in 1955, so full of despair at what he had seen around him. I wondered what I would howl when I found out whether or … Continue reading →
For the past month, I have been teaching an online class in writing in the flash subgenre. Last Saturday, I taught an all-day in-person seminar on the genre. So, this week, I am sharing some of my lesson ideas and … Continue reading →
…the heart…and the learned skills of the conscious mind… make appointments with each other, and keep them, and something begins to happen. Mary Oliver A Poetry Handbook Whether you are someone who sets out to write poems, essays, stories … 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 →
I was sitting at my dining table this morning with a cup of coffee looking out over the still smoky and haze-ridden sky we had experienced on the Olympic Peninsula for a week because of fires in Eastern Washington and … Continue reading →
Years ago, a poet friend of mine, Jim Mitsui, ended a poem with an image of people “following their keys home.” That image has lingered with me as a lesson about what the writing life saves us from, which is … Continue reading →
Have you had a difficult time finding a title for your work? Needed help from others or resented help from others when you thought your title was just right? Here are 12 stories by 12 writers about how titling worked … 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 →
There are many strong essays and stories written in the second-person point of view. One I’ve come across recently, “Bread” by Margaret Atwood, is especially instructive for its use of scenes to build an argument. With just the right details … Continue reading →
Listening to successful children?s book writer Patrick Jennings during an interview with him for ?In Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life,? I realized again how much authors of books for young readers have to teach all of us … Continue reading →
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing memoirist and novelist Pam Houston. At the time of the interview, her book, Contents May Have Shifted, was Port Townsend?s Community Read. I did the taping on behalf of our … Continue reading →
For several years now, I have been interviewing writers, editors, writing program directors and publishers for ?In Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life,? my regular program on KPTZ FM radio. At Writing It Real, we archive the programs, … Continue reading →
William Zinsser edited a book in 1988 called Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft of Religious Writing. In his introduction to the book, Zinsser states “the act of writing is ultimately a sacrament for both writer and reader.” The act … 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 →
Want to write an article for a local publication, an online site or a niche publication in a field of interest to you? Here are some prompts to get you going: Write a tourist type tour of your town for … Continue reading →
Author Joyce Carol Oates says, “The pleasure is the rewriting.” Author John Irving says, “More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn’t say I have a talent that’s special. … 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 →
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 →
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 →
I believe that we write in three stages–we act as playful inventors on the page, move on to the task of shaping our experience, and finally edit what we have written. Although these stages sometimes overlap a bit, on the … Continue reading →
We too often receive unhelpful, even harmful, response from first readers of our early drafts. We may feel our writing is being ripped apart or our readers are more interested in fixing punctuation and grammar than in our subject and feelings. Or we may … 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 →
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 →
Some of us write and don’t allow ourselves to even think we will publish because it seems out of our reach; others of us worry about publishing way too early, and, therefore, don’t write what we might. Writing comes first, of course, and … 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 →
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 →
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 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 →
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 →
It’s spring — we’ll be getting busy with outdoor chores, vacations and other summer activities before long. Less time for writing, you might be thinking. But an effective way to keep up your writing is to commit to keeping a … Continue reading →
National Poetry Month started yesterday. This week’s article is an oldie but goodie, originally published in 2007 and updated for 2014. In Port Townsend, the daffodils have been up several weeks. As usual out here, it looks like we’ll get … Continue reading →
You may think that being creative requires that you have an idea for a finished product. But an important attribute of creativity is that it produces what it will, not necessarily what you were thinking it ought to. You may … 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 →
Writing depends on our willingness to observe closely and our ability to allow ourselves to engage emotionally with what we are observing. So often, though, we don’t remember to take time to look around rather than look only at our … 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 →
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 →
There is a pleasure in the thought that the particular tone of my mind at this moment may be new in the universe; that the emotions of this hour may be peculiar and unexampled in the whole of eternity of … Continue reading →
In an essay William Matthews wrote as a contribution to my anthology The Writer’s Journal: 40 Writers and Their JournaIs, later reprinted in Keeping a Journal You Love, the late poet suggested that a journal “encourages scrappiness. Things needn’t be finished, just stored, … Continue reading →
Our lives present us with births, deaths, marriages, anniversaries, and other beginnings and endings. The following prompts excerpted from A Year in the Life: Journaling For Self-Discovery can help us focus our attention on our joy or grief and keep us … 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 →
As adults, we are so used to summarizing and editorializing. We have learned that abstractions are considered “smart” in writing and having opinions makes us sound even smarter. That’s what our teachers wanted from us on papers and on essay … 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 →
“Grandma, do you know what limericks are? I wrote one today. Do you want to hear it?” my 11-year-old grandson Toby asked after telling me about a guest poet’s visit to his fifth grade classroom. Of course, I wanted to … 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 →
April is National Poetry Month. That means nationwide, the month of April is filled with even larger numbers of poetry related events than other months of the year. Hopefully, reading about them in your local newspapers and on websites will … 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 →
Tip #1 — Find An Occasion Poet Stanley Plumly says that poems must weigh more at the end than they do at the beginning. As with poetry, the personal essay and memoir supply a vehicle for writers to find out what … 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 →
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 →
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 →
Over the last years, it has become respectable and even desirable to publish online and in ebook format. Traditional publishers, now often called legacy publishers, are scrambling to figure out how to survive in the digital age. With the mushrooming of … Continue reading →
In 2007, I wrote about the way I judge essays in a contest. As Writing It Real members enter their work for our 2013 Fall contest, I am reposting my thoughts on the judging process. When I judge, I separate judging … Continue reading →
Fantasy author Brian Rush’s article on writing for the fantasy fiction audience is filled with the history of the genre. He helps us see that even if we don’t think we like reading fantasy fiction or don’t ever write it, … 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 →
When Writing It Real member Jean Erler sent me the following essay as part of work she wanted to further develop, I knew that Writing It Real members would relate to what she was describing, a stance we writers take … Continue reading →
In her blog on her writer’s life, the author of When the de la Cruz Family Danced shares her personal approach to dealing with what she calls “writer’s envy.” Whether you have published or are seeking to publish, it is … Continue reading →
There is a place for essays of every length in the world of creative nonfiction. Susan Bono, publisher and editor of Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative, offers us some thoughts on writing short personal essays as well as … Continue reading →
At every writer’s workshop and class I teach, participants ask about self-publishing and publishing with established presses. Here’s novelist and short fiction writer Donna Miscolta’s blog piece on being in the midst of learning what presses and agents are saying … 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 →
I’ve been teaching several classes this month that concentrate on moving writing forward by using details–specific images that come in through the senses–and by receiving first reader response to drafts. That made me think of posting Chapter Eight from Writing … Continue reading →
Several years ago, I wrote Perfect Phrases for College Application Essays, a book for high school students. No two application essays should be alike, so the “perfect phrases” refers to phrases useful for researching oneself for subjects to write about … Continue reading →
I often hear from people eager to share their experience as writers with Writing It Real subscribers. I write back to them all with interest in how their experience can clarify aspects of the writing life as well as inspire … Continue reading →
Because we experience life chronologically, without a clear beginning, middle or end, memoirists tend to write in an episodic way — “this happened, then that happened, and after that… ” — and are often overwhelmed by a huge array of … Continue reading →
[We continue this week with more sage advice from a talented memoir author and psychotherapist who has guided many in writing their life stories. We think you will make good use of her idea for moving ahead even when your … Continue reading →
I am pleased to post this interview with author Jan Vallone, whose memoir excerpt “Perspective” appeared as our article last week. It is always a pleasure to correspond with authors about their experience, process, hopes, desires, disappointments and successes and … Continue reading →
[This essay appeared in The Summerset Review in 2005. The honesty of the author as she investigates her post-MFA-in-Creative-Writing life will resonate with many of us who dream of a life in which our writing is our main focus, a … Continue reading →
I recently came across notes I’d taken while working on The Writer’s Journal: 40 Writers and Their Journals. I’d long relished the journals of Emerson and Thoreau and liked reading about how the transcendentalists, including Louisa May Alcott, shared their … Continue reading →
A saying goes: Readers pick your current novel if you impress them on the first page, and they’ll buy your next novel if you wow them on the last page. Though all readers enjoy an impressive beginning, the impact of … Continue reading →
This week’s article by British author Jo Parfitt recounts the story of her early writing success and extracts the elements of that success for others to emulate. Getting a book published does not have to depend on who you know … Continue reading →
[This essay was adapted by the author from her book Naked, Drunk and Writing: Writing Essays and Memoirs for Love and for Money] For all its charm and sometimes apparent aimlessness, an essay has a skeleton, an underlying structure that … Continue reading →
Voice is one the most essential features of successful writing; if we fail to create an authentic, credible voice in our work, that work will fail — in spite of other virtues it may have. However, voice is often referred … Continue reading →
When I think about how I began cultivating my writer’s life, I realize had been doing so even before I knew what I was doing. But once it began a more conscious process, about a year later, I became overwhelmed. … Continue reading →
This article appeared on May 26 2008 among the article archive on the valuable NAWW.org website. Having met Penny several years ago at the Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference, I already admired her energy and support for writers. Her information in … Continue reading →
Earlier this year, I submitted a story to Glimmer Train, a fine literary magazine that boasts, “Each quarterly issue presents about 260 pages of literary fiction—eight to twelve brand new stories by luminaries and fresh new voices making their way … Continue reading →
If you’ve been identified as the one in your family, neighborhood or group of colleagues who writes, you may find yourself called upon to create writing for projects you hadn’t imagined setting out to do. One such request could be … Continue reading →
People have told me that fear of public speaking ranks high among the biggest fears we have. I know from my experience as a poet and writer who has given and attended readers for almost 30 years, that reading our … Continue reading →
After all the gift giving, charitable donations and holiday trips away this time of year, you’ll find the free resources listed below particularly attractive. Each link has inspiration and information to help you fill the well of your creativity. Stock … Continue reading →
On November 1-4, I attended the Bedell Nonfiction Now Conference at the University of Iowa. The conference’s mission is to explore the history, present, and future of nonfiction in its myriad forms, and, as you might expect, the conference was … Continue reading →
I spent my summer writing a book called Perfect Phrases for Writing the College Application Essay. My effort was to come up with sentences (sometimes questions, sometimes statements) to help those who have to write the application essay focus and … Continue reading →
Most of us writers collect quotes from writers on writing. Whether we hang them above our desks, write them in journals, put them in our email signatures, or use them as epigraphs for our own writing, they remind us of … Continue reading →
Last week we discussed poems in Rebecca McClanahan’s impressive collection, Deep Light. This week, we hear from her as a skillful user of figurative language and enjoy the exceptional opportunity to learn how to stretch our metaphor making muscles. The … Continue reading →
Reprinted with permission of Writer’s Digest Books from Writing Personal Essays: How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page by Sheila Bender, Writer’s Digest Books, 1995 About The Three-Step Response To help the writer understand what kind of contact … Continue reading →
I’m reading over 70 personal essays about rich human experience. The essays that came to us as entries in our contest are having a great impact on me. As I read, I move among countries, among ages, among decades and … Continue reading →
Everyone wants to help. Everyone has advice. My audiences split along the divide of wanting to know more about Louisa May Alcott, wanting to know more about me or wanting to know more about the genesis of the book (that’s … Continue reading →
A month ago, when I asked Writing It Real subscribers if they would like an article on technical computer issues writers face, there was a big response. Almost all the comments were about hard drive organization: Any tips you can … Continue reading →
Recently, I read Writing Brave & Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing by Steve Cox and Ted Kooser to learn how they encourage others who want to write. As always with books on writing, I am … Continue reading →
Writers write. A journal is way to do that, without knowing where you are going with the writing, to unload thoughts, obsessions, insights and observations, and sometimes to imitate other writers, seeing how your perceptions might come across in the … Continue reading →
If you don’t know how to start a piece of writing about a person, try remembering something that person believed. Write that belief out and attribute it to the person. What can you write that bounces off of those words? … Continue reading →
Always take some time to read what you are writing aloud after you have finished a draft. Note the places that are hard to say or seem to go flat or inspire you. Try taking out the flat spots, extending … Continue reading →
The following essay is one of a collection of 39 essays by distinguished editors about the practical and theoretical aspects of publishing that appear in Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, edited by Jerry … Continue reading →
Writing in BOOK PROMOTION newsletter, Francine shares the following quotes and biographical information about four dynamic motivational speakers and book authors: “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) “You become what you think about.” … 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 →
This article was originally published by Writer’s Digest Magazine. Reprinted here with the permission of the author. I’m willing to bet my favorite pen that most people who are reading this have no idea what a book packager is. Until … Continue reading →
I am a young schoolgirl watching the early dark fill my bedroom windows. I sit at a small drop leaf desk doing vocabulary homework, folding paper long ways in half and writing the date in whichever upper corner the teacher … Continue reading →
To write a good character, you have to imagine that you live in the character’s body and listen for his or her inner voice. Ask the character you are inventing what secret he or she most wants to keep. Decide … Continue reading →
At every conference I teach, participants commiserate about rejection notices– not only about getting them but about the insulting nature of their standardized messages. Occasionally, someone has a story of a personalized rejection or of actually having received suggestions from … Continue reading →
In March, 2005, Sarah Dickerson and I were on a panel along with Boise State University’s Karen Uehling and San Francisco writer Steven Winn in which we addressed attendees at the National Council of Teachers of English’s Conference on College … Continue reading →
…if you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole. — … Continue reading →
This material was originally published in the Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, edited by Katharine Sands Pitch Perfect by Jandy Nelson Years ago, I received a query letter that began: “I am a Vietnamese … Continue reading →
So often, we believe we have to put our daytime work aside in order to write and in order to reach the place inside ourselves where writing comes from. But I believe we will be more successful at tapping into … Continue reading →
In Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer: How to Win Top Writing Assignments (Nomad Press, 2004), writer Jenna Glatzer, who is Editor-in-Chief of absolutewrite.com, may insult some of us in her early chapters as she offers tips on … Continue reading →
What does it take to write persuasively and to move others to read and stay interested in your point-of-view? What does it take to write to change their thinking and behavior? Eda La Shan, the early childhood specialist, once said … Continue reading →
It’s spring-cleaning time, and I’ve gone through my files and bookshelves to update resources for those who write from personal experience. Here is Part I of my annotated list of resources, including books, journals and websites: Books on How to … Continue reading →
Feeling overwhelmed by data, random information, the flotsam and jetsam of mass culture, we relish the spectacle of a single consciousness making sense of a portion of the chaos…” — Scott Russell Sanders As readers of essays and poems, we … Continue reading →
Meg Files is a novelist, short fiction writer, creative nonfiction writer, poet and writing instructor extraordinaire. She has helped hundreds of students write and publish their writing, and she always takes their concerns seriously. Recently, when one student’s problem with … Continue reading →
Meg Files is a novelist, short fiction writer, creative nonfiction writer, poet and writing instructor extraordinaire. She has helped hundreds of students write and publish their writing, and she always takes their concerns seriously. Recently, when one student’s problem with … Continue reading →
When essayists learn to listen closely to the music they are making on the page and examine what the changes in the music mean, they learn to make the sounds of exactly what they have experienced and of exactly what … Continue reading →
Continuing from last week’s article, which included resources for publishing markets as well as six stories from writers on how they got into print, this week we share six more stories by writers of essays, children’s books, short fiction, nonfiction … Continue reading →
To publish your work, you must consider many markets and match your material to them: literary small press publications, national large circulation publications, local newspapers, regional and national newspapers, radio, industry publications and online sites and publications. It is rare … Continue reading →
This week’s article is an excerpt from Rebecca McClanahan’s instructional book Write Your Heart Out: Exploring & Expressing What Matters To You, published by Walking Stick Press. This season, as we watch children in an environment where everything seems transformed, … Continue reading →
The Sunday July 20, 2003 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle was proud to report that its journalists are serving the Bay Area community well. Arts and culture critic Steven Winn was among four Chronicle writers who placed in the … Continue reading →
Caroline Arnold, who has published over 100 nonfiction books for children, is a pro at finding information on sophisticated topics and making it fit the page limits set by her publishers. To do this she uses captions, sidebars, glossaries, charts … Continue reading →
The Diarist’s Journal is published three times a year in February, June and October by Hollie Rose. The publication is a rich and lively discussion of journaling, diary keeping, and the community surrounding it. The journal is calling for submissions … Continue reading →
Poet Stanley Plumly, a teacher of mine, used to say that poems must weigh more at the end than at the beginning. What matters to us has emotional weight, and as with poetry, the personal essay supplies a vehicle for … Continue reading →
This article originally appeared in the 1999 issue of The Sampler, the newsletter of the Southern California Children’s Literature Council (formerly the Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People (SCCLCYP). When I was seven years old, I … Continue reading →
When her mother’s Parkinson’s had progressed, Patricia Hassler quit her job and became her mother’s caretaker. Realizing she needed a creative outlet, she answered an ad in a local paper for a columnist to write about a nearby suburb where … Continue reading →
I am delighted to offer readers of Writing It Real this personal essay by writer, editor, and publicist Bob Yehling. In his essay, we get a glimpse of a passionate writer at work, writing from life experience, appreciating the work … Continue reading →
Poetry is a kind of food, shelter, and clothing for which I am thankful. It nourishes my being, builds a dwelling for my ecstasy and my awe, and keeps me warm when I grieve. Books on my shelves and on … Continue reading →