Tell the Truth As You Understand It

“If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being...

Telling True Stories

One of the best things about staying with your work for a very long time is that you have a chance to understand, year after year, what exactly you’re doing. Not even because you’re trying to do it better, but because each year your work reveals itself even more to...

Permission Granted

This is a Wild Writing piece inspired by the poem, Permission Granted, by David Allen Sullivan.           Yes, you have permission to refuse the rest of the red velvet cake your Mother wants you to pack up and take with you on your 300-mile drive...

Catching a Little Wind

Just when I was thinking of finally biting the bullet and asking my doc for a prescription for something that might give me a little more zing, add a little skip, put a smile on my face – good god – anything to give me a tiny, loving shove into the new year, I get an...

On Patience

The other day on a walk, my friend told me that all of the big parts of his life were in flux; housing, work, money, love. None of them felt firmly planted, nothing was certain. And yet with all that uncertainty, he felt really solid. Meditation, walks with his dog in...

Keep Coming Back

The truth about being a writing teacher is that everything you teach to others is often a lesson that you have to keep learning for yourself, over and over. So it will come as no surprise when I tell you that it truly is a challenge for me to sit my fanny down and...