Tag Archives: on writing

We Write to Feel and to Make Others Feel What is Genuine

Posted on by October 2, 2016
When someone asks (or you ask yourself) why you write, I bet that many of the motivations you think to cite are on this list: • to understand your experience, • because you have a story in your heart, • because you can’t keep yourself from writing, • because you hope at least one other person on the … Continue reading →
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In Conversation with Meg Files and Jack Heffron

Posted on by November 2, 2016
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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 my KPTZ FM radio program, In Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life.

Below are links to those two programs as well as links to previous Writing It Real articles featuring Jack and Meg’s writing and thoughts about writing. It’s a feast!

The Podcasts

Writing It Real Articles by Meg Files

Writing It Real Articles by Jack Heffron

If You Want to Write…

Posted on by June 3, 2015
This week, Judy Reeves, author of the new book, Wild Women, Wild Voices, shares her thoughts on writing practice. Here article serves as a good review for all of us who are busy concentrating on revising and publishing and may have begun to overlook the idea of what a writing practice is and offers. She … Continue reading →
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Cognitive Therapy for Writers: Behave Your Way Into Writing

Posted on by February 11, 2015
When it comes to writing, we so often undermine our efforts by thinking that we are not disciplined enough, educated enough, smart enough, skilled enough, or wise enough to call ourselves writers. We must find ways to change that thinking if we are to allow writing an important place in our lives. It matters that we … Continue reading →
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An Ode to the Author of Blue Willow

Posted on by July 23, 2014
I was reading a magazine article recently in which authors wrote about pivotal books they’ve read. What book would I name, I wondered. Immediately, I saw myself at my fourth grade desk in the 1950’s at Franklin Elementary School in Union Township, New Jersey. I am unwrapping a book I ordered from the Scholastic Book … Continue reading →
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Need to Breathe New Life into the Journal Keeping Habit? Hire the Journal Keeper Within

Posted on by May 7, 2014
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 writer’s journal where you can explore language, memories, writing ideas and more. But when in … Continue reading →
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What I Was Thinking

Posted on by January 22, 2014
This article first ran January 24, 2008, after a visit from my grandsons. Their visit over this past Martin Luther King three-day weekend had me thinking again about the way watching children’s reactions to our adult judgments and commands can help us become kinder to our writing and our writing selves, so we can better … Continue reading →
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Our Writing Minds Depend on This

Posted on by December 11, 2013
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 screens because of the mad crush of email, texts, instant messages, facebook posts, tweets, and … Continue reading →
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Tips for Creating a Great Author Photo and Bio

Posted on by September 5, 2013
If you are preparing a manuscript for publication or creating a blog to build a platform for your work, you will find tips by fiction writer and publisher Midge Raymond extremely useful. This article is excerpted from her recent book in Everyday Book Marketing: Promotion Ideas to Fit Your Regularly Scheduled Life. The Author Photo … Continue reading →
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Judith Kitchen on Reading as a Writer Reads Part 1

Posted on by July 17, 2013
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 the hearts of many in this community. At the top of the month the library … Continue reading →
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Interview with Memoirist Barbara McNally on The Writing of Unbridled: A Memoir

Posted on by and June 28, 2014
When otherwise good girl Barbara McNally is caught having an affair (for the second time), her marriage ends within weeks and with it, so does the image she created for her two teenaged girls and the man she married right out of college. In her book Unbridled: A Memoir, Barbara (whose website is here) begins … Continue reading →
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On Writing Memoir: Obsessions Digressions and Epiphanies

Posted on by March 27, 2013
Sandra Hurtes is the author of the essay collection, On My Way To Someplace Else and the chapbook RESCUE. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Poets & Writers, among other publications. You can find links to her work and a link to her new blog, Chasing the Present Moment. … Continue reading →
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Five Tips for Inspiring Quality Writing from Life Experience

Posted on by March 14, 2013
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 matters and to feel the weight of what matters. As writers, we take ourselves, and … Continue reading →
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Taking Chances

Posted on by March 6, 2013
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 Real in Nashville April 25-28 conference. Join us for a chance to work with Jack as … Continue reading →
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Interview with Poet and Memoirist Kim Stafford

Posted on by and January 15, 2013
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 sets out in his book 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do, A Memoir to explore … Continue reading →
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Our Dreams Choose Us

Posted on by March 6, 2013
After I began studying with poets at the University of Washington in the early 80’s, I had a closet in my bedroom under my house’s eaves converted into a writing nook with a skylight. Sitting there at night, I could see the stars and sometimes the moon. During the day, sunshine and Seattle’s famous clouds, … Continue reading →
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You Are My Heroes — A Letter to Writers

Posted on by December 26, 2012
You may have taken time away from writing while preparing for the holidays, but now’s the time to jump back in to reach your writing goals. This week’s article from the Writing It Real archives first appeared in 2006. If offers support for taking the place of writing in your life seriously and a writing … Continue reading →
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The Holiness of the Heart’s Affections

Posted on by March 6, 2013
The following article about trusting our need to write was first published in Writing It Real on December 25, 2003.  As this year draws to a close, it seems timely again to remember that as artists, we must overcome  whatever lack of courage  we harbor and meet the world’s sadness as well as its joy with … Continue reading →
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Making a Book from Lists: An Interview with Adam Diament

Posted on by December 17, 2012
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 from the first words of the introduction, I knew I wanted to learn more about … Continue reading →
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