Memoir
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Quicksand
Miss Bell tells me to stand up. She’s the first-grade Sunday school teacher at Tuckahoe Presbyterian. She says she’s sending me to Mrs. Platt’s office. Mrs. Platt is the education director, the closest thing the church has to a school principal. I am six years old, and I am in trouble for lying. Every Sunday, Continue reading
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Three Ways to Energize Your Writing
In my creative nonfiction writing classes, I conduct workshops in which students read and provide feedback on their classmates’ first drafts of writing assignments. The writers then use the feedback they receive to plan and write revisions of their work. In these workshops, I prompt my students to look for the “hot spot” in a Continue reading
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Enough
I move into an old house in Ypsilanti and winter there, braving sub-zero temperatures only to drive to and from work. The rest of the time I’m in bed, swaddling myself in a wool blanket through the twilight days of a Michigan January, shielding myself from the house’s drafts and chills. Chills haunt me through Continue reading
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Bread
I was six years old when I first tasted homemade bread. In the hills of Western Maryland, in a cramped kitchen with outdated appliances and faded wallpaper, my grandmother filled Mason jars with fruit preserves, pickles, tomatoes, and green beans. She grew salad greens in her tiny backyard and baked her own cakes and pies. Continue reading
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Writing about Abusive Parents: What’s in a Title?
When I first saw Jennette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died among my Amazon book recommendations, I decided not to read it. First, I don’t usually read memoirs by celebrities. I prefer to read memoirs by writers. McCurdy earned some recognition as a Nickelodeon child star, so she is among the many celebrities who Continue reading
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How to Write about What You Don’t Know in Personal Nonfiction
Writing personal nonfiction—memoir or the personal essay—generally requires us to approach our subjects from a first-person point of view. Since we are telling our own stories, we naturally refer to ourselves as “I” and speak as ourselves. We write as factual human beings about our actual lived experiences. By writing in first-person, though, we limit ourselves 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 