Creative Nonfiction
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On Teaching, Imposter Syndrome, and the Hazards of Homonyms
“I am a liar,” Tony said in my English composition class. To prepare for a writing assignment, I was leading my students in a discussion of identity markers: race, gender, socioeconomic status. As usual during our class sessions, Tony had been sitting slumped in his seat, arms folded over his chest, staring at me, smirking. Continue reading
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Memory of Payton in Four Fragments
I. Bull’s Eye Aunt Dinny and Mother walked ahead, their white shirts lit by the evening sun, with Cousin Payton and me behind them. He and I walked side-by-side because Aunt Dinny said Payton and I should be friends. The dirt road behind my grandmother’s house was straight, running east to west, with woods on Continue reading
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Perfectionism: A Coin Toss
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2000, Martha Stewart described herself as a “maniacal perfectionist.” You remember Martha Stewart, right? A woman whose career has spanned six decades. A woman who turned a Connecticut-based catering business into a billion-dollar corporation. Someone who has cultivated publicity-provoking friendships with a wide cast of famous characters: Donald Continue reading
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Martha Redux
David and I spend most of our evenings together in our new home. A pair of later-life newlyweds, we devote the time to bringing our two, already-full lives together and merging them into one new shared life. At the end of each day, we come together for bits of conversation, the luxury of comfortable silences, Continue reading
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Twelfth Summer
A childhood friend texted me recently to ask a question. When we were twelve, her father took the two of us to an Osmond Brothers concert in Baltimore. Did I remember the date that we went to that concert? I remembered. The date has stayed with me over the intervening decades. I replied to her Continue reading
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Writing Prompts, Revisited
In my previous post, “Wondering What to Write About? Try These Prompts,” I listed ten writing prompts that I have offered my creative nonfiction writing students to help them overcome their anxiety as they approach a blank page. Sometimes writers need a nudge from outside of their own minds to get them started. A prompt Continue reading
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.
Person on the Page 