Reflections on Three Years of Blogging
Library at Alcatraz I started this blog more than three years ago, and since I reflected on two years of blogging last year, it's high time to share my insights from three [...]
Library at Alcatraz I started this blog more than three years ago, and since I reflected on two years of blogging last year, it's high time to share my insights from three [...]
One insight from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones has already affected how I write. Here it is: "In the early seventies there was a study done on women and language [...]
Following up on yesterday's post, The Bookshelves of Others, the book I spotted in the bookcase in my bedroom at VCCA was Natalie Goldberg's classic Writing Down the Bones. I entertained [...]
Oh, the serenity of a residency at the VCCA! I've returned to my everyday life in Chicago, and already VCCA's calm and focused atmosphere seems elusive. So I thought I'd [...]
Right now, this is the wall by my desk in my studio at the VCCA. I am still cutting paper into bits and pieces to work with text (see also my [...]
I love the cut and paste feature of Word, but every now and then, I resort to scissors and tape to arrange a text. Whenever I struggle with structure, I [...]
Download my free 14-page workbook to review and plan your writing life. For the writers among my readers, I have a little gift: my Writer's Workbook 2014 (download it by clicking on [...]
I did it! I taught myself how to read an American knitting pattern! It feels like I learned how to read, and it reminded me how powerfully enabling it is [...]
This very good question came up in my Advanced Memoir class recently, and my answer is twofold: A piece of writing is done when you feel you have been able [...]
Writing Morning Pages has become an important daily ritual for me ever since I read Julia Cameron's book The Right to Write. That book was so transformative for me in [...]
Ellen Sheffield's Book Arts Studio at Kenyon College One of my housemates at the Kenyon Writer's Workshop was Mimi Chiang, and not only did we hit it off right away, [...]
This is my life at Kenyon College right now - sunlight filtering throug the trees along the Middle Path, where we writers tread to meet for our various workshops. I [...]
The other day I picked up my son from his summer internship at Blue Buddha, one of the largest distributors of chainmaille supplies, which happens to be here in Chicago. [...]
Today is guest blogger day at the Blogathon, and I am happy to be hosting William Kendall. Regular readers will recognize him as this blog's most steadfast commenter. His dedication to [...]
If memoir is the genre of truth, how could it possibly be acceptable to lie? Wasn’t James Frey fried because he lied? And yet, I venture to say that it [...]
Today I bring you what I think is a most inspiring post: My longtime student Diane Hurles has shared here before how she managed to find her voice as a memoir [...]
The often incorrect use of the term memoir is a pet peeve of mine; after all, it is my genre. It's what I write primarily, and what I teach. So [...]
My author Q&A with Leslie Maitland appeared in the Washington Independent Review of Books last week. Her memoir Crossing the Borders of Time, about finding her mother's first love whom she [...]
"Mom vandalized the wall!" - that was my son's first reaction upon seeing my word of the year written on our living room wall. "Hey, there's a word on the wall!" [...]
Article in the French Jewish magazine Tenou'a featuring the same art work by Michael Thompson I featured last May. Coming on the heels of my damp review of hosting [...]
Shaker Village Bonnet - as featured on shuttersisters I've been blogging for two years now, and since I reflected on my first year of blogging a year ago, it's [...]
I'm still struggling with trimming an essay to meet word count. This essay's parking lot is full! So I decided to employ the Paramedic Method that I teach in [...]
Luc-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, June 2009 Ok, so the parking lot in this picture is beautiful because it is a) on the Normandy Coast of France, and b) features a [...]
I am beyond pleased to host one of my memoir students, Julia San Fratello, as a guest blogger today. Julia just enjoyed her very first writer's residency at Ragdale [...]
As announced last Monday, I am happy to welcome Shirley Hershey Showalter as a guest blogger today. We met in the online world last year; I was initially intrigued by [...]
I wonder what it means if I don't even notice anymore that my writing has gotten published? Have I reached a level of publication success where I can go, [...]
My great-grandfather's sewing machine, still in use on my dining room table When you write memoir, sooner or later you come upon the issue of, "Is this [...]
My Advanced Memoir Workshop was fortunate to host Wenguang Huang, author of The Little Red Guard, for an immensely informative Q&A session back in July. (Lucky for us, he lives [...]
The past few days I've become obsessed with creating a book in blurb, as I am handling the layout of the literary magazine my son's school is publishing. It's [...]
Image by freepik As part of my current series on Moms Who Write, I am happy to welcome my longtime student Stephanie Springsteen. Her work has appeared [...]
I haven't done the color list exercise in a while, mainly because I thought I had covered all the main colors already. For the uninitiated, the idea of the [...]
The month of March has crept up without me presenting a color list exercise yet, but here we go. I have one more color left, I think, and that's [...]
Nevada Road - see corresponding photo essay on wild horses What a ride it has been! I started this blog in January last year because I wanted to have [...]
Since we already did red, which would also have been appropriate for February, the month of Valentine's Day, the color for this month is purple. At least there is [...]
Dusty Miller at the Lincoln Park Conservatory Even though there still is no snow outside here in Chicago, the color for this month is going to be white, perhaps [...]
Today was the last day of the Dr. Seuss and the Art of Invention Exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry. Thanks to my daughter, who purchased tickets [...]
Driving towards downtown Chicago recently It seems like all the color is gone now outside, and days like the one in my photo here are more prevalent. Thus, the [...]
Today is the last day of November, an appropriate time to share with you my favorite poem, Herbsttag (Autumn Day) by Rainer Maria Rilke. Many of you probably know [...]
The studios at VCCA are housed in the former barn complex. During my second time there, we had a terrific blizzard. This pictures shows the brilliant day after the [...]
I love it when students share their concerns with me and ask questions that I am sure many writers ask themselves. Today I am sharing one such question (with [...]
Another month has begun, so it's time for another color list. The color for November will be brown as it seems a month rich with so many earthly things. [...]
On my fourth day back home from the writersandcritters conference in Sterling, VA, I am still exhausted. Writers conferences will do that to you, even a small and intimate [...]
Looking at what you stuff into your coat pockets offers a sketch of your character. When I sifted through the spoils from our road trip, half of what I [...]
What would fall be without pumpkins? So October's color is orange. For the uninitiated, the idea here is to come up with ways to evoke orange without mentioning the color [...]
Since I'm always waxing about how to get the submissions process done right, I thought I'd share, for a change, the story of my own worst mishap. In February of [...]
September is the month of lushness - all the fruits and vegetables are ripe and deep in color. So this month's color is the most forceful of colors: red. [...]
On the surface, Johanna Adorján’s An Exclusive Love is about her grandparents’ suicide. But it is really a love story, in more way than one, with all the requisite [...]
This installment on the value of an MFA offers answers from some of my fellow alumni from the MFA in Creative Writing program at Queens University of Charlotte. Q: [...]
The sun is still high up in the sky so the color for this month of August is the color of the sun - yellow. For the uninitiated, the [...]
This installment on the benefits and practicalities of getting an MFA in Creative Writing covers the issue of finding the time to pursue on an MFA in the midst [...]