The Challenge of Writing True Stories

When my friend + long time student, Lisa Sadikman asked me if I wanted to participate in a blog hop where writers get a chance to write about their writing process I said sure, then immediately regretted it because I had just promised myself that I wouldn’t say yes to...

The Trouble with Words

A writer friend and I were walking recently and discussing the challenge of writing about deeply personal experiences. We agreed that writing about the important events or people in our lives was a way to unpack and understand them better. That was good. On the other...

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...

The Gift of Sadness

If you’re a parent, you know how painful it is when your child is sad. What’s the saying? You’re only as happy as your most unhappy child. So when my daughter came home from the first few weeks of the 10th grade this year in tears because she didn’t connect with any...