May 3, 2020
THERE ARE MANY over-used and under-explained phrases in writing instruction. We tell writers to “show, not tell.” We tell them to “write what you...
April 15, 2020
I WENT TO WRITE SOMETHING the other day and discovered I was – uh-oh! – rusty. Really rusty. I write all the time, and...
April 4, 2020
I TEACH ONLINE MEMOIR CLASSES and work as a memoir coach and memoir editor, and in those roles I get a lot of requests...
March 20, 2020
SOME TIME AGO, I learned from an expert the exquisite skill of how to use lists to write memoir. It happened one night in...
March 18, 2020
You are driving behind a car and notice the left-hand turning signal goes on. As a result, you expect that car in front of...
February 19, 2020
ONE OF MY FAVORITE questions to get when working with online memoir classes or memoir coaching clients is how to choose scenes when writing...
February 9, 2020
NO MORE WRITING EXERCISES. I mean it. If you are going to learn to write memoir, you need to learn to write with intent....
January 26, 2020
One of my favorite topics to discuss and teach is how to write memoir using lists. Whenever I suggest a list to one of...
January 12, 2020
PEOPLE ARE ALL ABOUT telling you who you are. Well, kind of. These days, revelatory or confessional conversation is all the rage, of course,...
November 24, 2019
GET A LOT OF questions about how to write about loved ones, and almost always my answer includes something about inheritances, the weirder the...
September 8, 2019
Clutter is not what is holding you back as a writer. Neither is it your mother, your father/the nuns/the second-grade teacher who told you...
September 6, 2019
I HAD THE PEANUT BUTTER. The large-mouth jar of chunky. I had the spoon. The soup spoon, to be specific, the logic being the...
