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Apology to Mature Women Everywhere
Several years ago, I read Abigail Thomas’s memoir Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life. A member of my writing group at the time recommended the book, explaining that Thomas offers snapshots from a life in chapters that are often less than a page long and saying that she thought I might like it. I Read more
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Let’s Legitimize Personal Nonfiction
Several years ago, I attended a week-long writers’ conference on a university campus during which participants were divided into workshop groups based on genre, theme, or focus. I was in the group of memoirists whose workshop was titled Writing through and about Trauma. We were eight women who had survived various kinds of childhood and Read more
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What to Do When Your Writing Stalls
It happens to me regularly. Maybe it happens to you, too. I’m writing something, and I think the work is going well. Then, after a while, I’m struck by the feeling that what I’m writing is dull and unoriginal, and that it lacks energy. Or I realize that what I’m writing is not the message Read more
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Why I Wanted Lucille Ball to be My Mother (Memoir)
Mike Douglas introduced his next guest. We had one of those mahogany console black and white televisions that were popular in the 1960s. It reigned as the pot-bellied god of our living room at our house in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Music played on the Mike Douglas Show as Lucille Ball walked onstage. I recognized her from Read more
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Five Qualities of Good Writing
What distinguishes effective writing from writing that somehow misses the mark? What about our writing invites readers into our message and keeps them reading to the end? Based on my years as a writing instructor, writer, and reader, here are what I have found to be some of the qualities of good writing. 1. Surprise Read more
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Telephonophobia (An Experiment in Memoir)
My thanks to Bear River Review, in which this essay was published. The sound I heard that morning was from one of those Bell telephones, still in common use in the 1970s, with a rotary dial and an actual bell with a mechanical clapper. It jangled its urgent ding-a-ling-a-ling, demanding attention. I sometimes recall one Read more
Do you write about yourself and your experiences? Do you write about traumatic events in your life? Or, do you struggle to find time and motivation to write?
If so, this blog is for you.
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