NO MORE WRITING EXERCISES. I mean it. If you are going to learn to write memoir, you need to learn to write with intent. That’s my phrase — writing with intent — and I’m sticking to it, since I know how well it has worked for others. Ready to come along? [Read more...]
How to Write Memoir: Where to Start
January 20, 2012 By 2 Comments
HOW TO START? It’s a question I get all the time. Where to begin a piece of memoir? [Read more...]
Resolution Recap: Writing Memoir in 2012
January 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
NEWS YEAR RESOLUTIONS are crumbling fast. I can almost hear the candy wrappers from here, can’t you? There are some resolutions that we’re not going to break, right? Those having to do with writing. Right? Hello? What were those again? [Read more...]
Your New Best Friend:
The Deadline Calendar
GO ON, TRY my interactive calendar of emotional high holy days, regular-version high holy days and more. Hover your cursor over a cinnamon-colored date to see what pops up. Use it to start personal essays, radio pieces and op-eds to submit on deadline. How? Look three months out for radio ideas; six to twelve for magazine pieces. Pick it, write it, submit it. You’re a writer. That’s what writers do.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Apr | Jun » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5May, 5 2012Cinco de MayoIt is Cinco de Mayo, commemorating the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces in 1862. This is a great one for everything from a memoir about someone else’s cultural holidays, some food memoir perhaps, or a piece of memoir placed at celebration for the day. | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12May, 12 2012Hurricanes Finally Get Named for Men, As WellIt was on this day in 1978 that hurricanes also were named for men. Previously named only for women, this seems like justice, however late. What’s in a name? My sister has something to say about that, named as she is, for a racehorse. I told this story on NPR’s All Things Considered. Have a look. | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16May, 16 2012Fiddlehead TimeIt’s Fiddlehead time. Fiddlehead ferns that is, sold and eaten while they are still rolled up. Fiddleheads are the unfurled fronds of a young fern harvested for food consumption. Called a fiddlehead because it resembles the curled ornamentation (called a scroll) on the end of a stringed instrument, such as a fiddle, it is It is also called a crozier since it also resembles the curved staff used by bishops, which has its origins in the shepherd’s crook. Got some food memoir? I lap it up, and write it down here. | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23May, 23 2012The Father of Taxomony is BornOn this day in 1707 was the birth of Carl Linneaus, the man who created order out of chaos by creating a classification system for naming and identifying plants. I created one of those, though mine divides by people, asking if you are either a burger or a burrito. Check it out. | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27May, 27 2012Rachel Carson’s BirthdayOn this day in 1907 was the birth of Rachel Carson, one of the greatest advocates the earth will ever know. The New Yorker magazine took a chance on her, first publishing her in 1951 and in 1962 serializing Silent Spring, in which she took on the subject of the ravaging effects of pesticides. The book is still regarded as the cornerstone of the new environmentalism. She inspires me, and I might write a piece of memoir about reading that book or what she has meant to me. You? What creative inspiration does she provoke in you? |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
Welcome, She Writers!
June 10, 2011 By 12 Comments
Welcome, She Writers. This is my new blog, devoted entirely to teaching the art of writing what you know. Please have a look around. To those of you who wonder what a She Writer might be, it’s a group of us who belong to She Writes, a fabulous and helpful community for, well, she who writes. For everyone looking for my regular blog, just go to the navigation buttons above and read on.
