[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 is the day I turned 77. It is a good day for review and reflection. I came to the writing life seriously when I began studying poetry as a non-matriculating student at the University of Washington near my home … 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
According to Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, commitment means “the state of being bound emotionally or intellectually to an ideal or course of action.” Emotionally or intellectually are good words for the writer to fuse. To keep on writing … Continue reading →
When I was in third grade, my teacher asked me to write a Chanukah play to be presented along with a Christmas play for the kids in my class. I am not sure how she identified me as a writer. … Continue reading →
How does one muster the courage to keep writing even when no one has asked for her to write? How does a writer handle restlessness and disappointment? The author Ralph Keyes writes in The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend … Continue reading →
We’ll soon be thinking about the New Year’s Resolutions we want to make for 2017. For those who write, at least one of those resolutions will likely be about finding more time to write. I know that’s what I’d like … 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Creativity in one’s thinking and in one’s art is unsettling, both to the artist and to audiences. The courage to create must be born again and again.
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 →
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 →
This week we are proud to publish the first of three winning essays in our recent contest. In choosing Hildegard Hingle’s essay as the first place winner in Writing It Real’s 2013 spring and summer writing contest, guest judge Terry … 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
If you have been having difficulty finding topics or ways into the areas that you most want to explore in your writing, try the following exercise I developed from reading Rilke’s Letter to a Young Poet to refresh your approach … Continue reading →