Personal Nonfiction
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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 In the hills of Western Maryland, in a cramped kitchen with outdated appliances and faded wallpaper, my grandmother filled Mason jars with fruit preserves, pickles, tomatoes, and green beans.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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Reasons to Keep Writing
Writing is hard work. Maintaining a regular writing practice can be thankless. You don’t always get the recognition and support that you deserve. Your writing gets rejected. Or ignored. You may question your ability. You may wonder why you keep doing it, or if you should. At times when you feel that your writing is… Continue reading
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Tomatoes
I’m taking a class on food writing. This is my first attempt at a writing assignment. I used to grow bushels of tomatoes every summer. Early Girls, Better Boys, red cherries and yellow plums, sometimes Romas. Once I grew San Marzanos. Every year my plants were healthy, their leaves the warm tone of summer grass… Continue reading
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The Two “I”s of Memoir
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings:it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. William Wordsworth During the British literary Romantic Period (1780s-1830s), William Wordsworth offered a definition of lyric poetry that places memory at the center of the creative process. He suggests that the stuff of poems arises from a poet’s contemplation… Continue reading
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Writing about Place in Personal Nonfiction
All of our experiences are located; they happen in a physical space. All of our most profound thoughts and deepest wishes, all of our doubts and our convictions, our heartbreaks and triumphs have been influenced by the place in which they occurred. Fiction writers know that creating a palpable setting for their stories is essential… 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.