Writing
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The Power of Surprise in Personal Creative Nonfiction
People today are over-entertained. They are barraged by a haphazard mix of useful and useless information. They are word-wearied. As writers, if we want to attract and maintain the attention of today’s overstimulated readers, we must show them something new. As a late-career English professor, I sometimes feel that I have seen it all. This… Continue reading
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Writing about Our Obsessions
At a writing workshop I attended several years ago, the facilitator said, “Find your obsession, and write about it.” I have to admit that I was resistant to the idea. An obsession is not necessarily a healthy or positive thing, right? I mean, I thought about my obsessive need to check repeatedly to make sure… 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
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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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Guest Blog Alert
What do chef Anne Burrell and journalist Dan Charnas have in common? They are both mentioned in my guest blog “What a Chef Can Teach Us about Writing” at The Heart of the Matter. Please check it out! 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 