“So I would imagine you have to do a lot of reading in an MFA program,” I am sometimes asked. The answer is yes, and appropriately so: some believe the best way to learn to write is to read a lot, and to read critically. So what have I been reading the last two years […]
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Tag Archives: Memoir
When the End of the Road is Just the Beginning
November 6, 2012 
45 Comments
I just now, moments ago, finished the first draft of the last chapter of my book-length memoir. I am alone in my basement, full of joy and excitement and wonder, but I am not alone, because I know that the readers of this blog are with me. I still have a ways to go on […]
Read moreSelling Someone Out: The Ethics of Writing about Your SEAL Team Operation to Kill Bin Laden
August 31, 2012 29 Comments
September 4th isn’t just the day after Labor Day in the U.S., it’s also the new publication date for No Easy Day, an autobiographical account of the killing of Osama bin Laden. Nearly 600,000 copies of this book–allegedly written by an ex-Navy SEAL who participated in the raid of bin Laden’s Pakistan compound a little […]
Read moreAre You Avoiding Your Creative Work in Progress?
July 17, 2012 52 Comments
I’m not alone in this, I keep telling myself. People take breathers from their creative projects all the time, and come back refreshed and recharged. Right? If I avoid exercise for six weeks, my body does not pick up where it left off. Instead it lets me know how unhappy it is with me through […]
Read moreWho Has Your Creativity Sold Out?
April 27, 2012 71 Comments
Is your creativity selling out someone in your life? Joan Didion famously wrote that “writers are always selling somebody out.” Songwriters, painters, novelists and other creatives channel their life experiences when producing their art. Take my post on Tuesday, in which I passed along advice I heard at a recent writer’s conference about building a […]
Read moreCreativity Tweets of the Week 4/6/12
April 6, 2012 3 Comments
Care to join me in an interactive, creative storytelling workshop? Make your way to D.C. on Wednesday, April 11th for “Telling Your Story Creatively: Principles and Whole-Brain Practices for Writing Compelling Blog Posts.” It’s the April event for the Capitol Creativity Network, and it should be a lot of fun! Now on to some of […]
Read moreAWP Nugget: Immersion Writing
March 3, 2012 16 Comments
AWP, CHICAGO: Egads. I’m here to learn, but I wasn’t expecting to find myself facing fundamental questions about my work-in-progress. I do live a life open to possibility, however, and you can’t always control how possibility will manifest. Allow me to back up a bit. I attended a Friday morning AWP panel titled “The Writer […]
Read moreAWP Nugget: Selling Out Everyone You Love (in Brevity)
March 1, 2012 7 Comments
AWP, CHICAGO: Does a writer of memoir–or even a fiction writer painting true stories in camouflage–invariably sell out friends and loved ones? Five nonfiction writers wrestled with that topic here at the first day of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference. I summarized the panel for the Brevity blog; you can find […]
Read moreGuest Post: How to Open a Memoir
February 28, 2012 9 Comments
Today I’m honored to provide a guest post by multi-published author and writing instructor Sara Mansfield Taber, whose latest memoir, Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter, has just been published by Potomac Books. I first met Sara when taking a workshop taught by her at The Writer’s Center, […]
Read moreCreativity Tweets of the Week — 01/13/12
January 13, 2012 24 Comments
Your patience has been rewarded. After a four-week hiatus, the Creativity Tweets of the Week makes its triumphant return. Once again I provide some of the best links on creativity and writing I sent via Twitter this week. Note I still provide a focus on creativity despite changing my Twitter handle yesterday from @on_creativity to […]
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