Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 105

What The New York Times ‘Guest Essay’ Means for the Future of Creative Nonfiction

By Zoë Bossiere

In April, The New York Times announced that the paper’s “Op-Ed” opinion section, established in 1970, would be rebranded as “Guest Essays.” This seemingly small change, made with minimal fanfare, actually marks a momentous shift for the creative nonfiction essay. The essay has existed much on the fringes of literary writing and journalism since Michel de Montaigne penned his Essais in 1580. Famously, even he thought them a waste of time, warning readers, “I am myself the ...

Then Fall, Mrs. Byers: Writing That “Single Moment”

By Crystal Byers

It was a day like any other school day—me, teaching the next generation, returning their graded memoirs, explaining the meaning of revision and the next phase of the assignment while traversing every inch of the classroom.

“Just because I marked up your papers doesn’t mean that they are terrible,” I said, handing students their work.

Passing back the first essay of the year always breaks my heart. Student faces reveal disappointment, and I do my darnedest to sof...

Giving Up on Giving Up

By Kirsten Voris

Photo by Bill Hatcher

Five rejections in two months. I should be congratulating myself. It’s simple math—submitting more = more rejection.

I still find the stream of “nos” dispiriting. And draining. I was at the bottom of the drain, and calling a summer submissions break, when I attended How to Publish Your Writing in Literary Journals. The editors of Radar Poetry, Rachel Moles and Dara Shrager, appeared as part of a free monthly Zoom series on writing and publishing, o...

Infinite ‘Write’ Ways: Meeting the Unique Needs of Each Individual Writer

By Margaret Moore

Someone once told me that I must be going about the writing process all wrong.

The remark came from an individual who was eager to see the release of my debut book—a memoir about growing up with a physical disability called Cerebral Palsy, losing my father to cancer, and participating in academics, extreme sports, and extracurricular activities with my mother’s support and the inspiration of my father’s determination never to give up. Undoubtedly a flattering sentimen...

Teaching Brevity in Memoir

By Linda Downing Miller

I’ve taught a weekly memoir and creative writing class for more than six years through the Center for Life and Learning, in Chicago. September to June, the CLL offers a variety of educational programs for adults 60 and older. Each meeting of memoir brings about a dozen participants together to read their writing aloud. Their life stories fill and enrich our sessions. Writers get to know one-another as they deepen their understanding of how writing engages an audien...

Wielding the Editorial Machete

By Brian Watson

I lost track of the revision count. There had been many since the first draft of my memoir. The more I worked, the more details flew into my mind. I caught my breath in May, thinking that all was good. The word count? 103,946.

Judas Priest, that’s a lot.

Part of me was proud. One hundred thousand words was a mythical goal. I have things to say — important things, of course — and the words just tumbled out of me.

A friend read a small part of it. She was encouragin...

Ten Things I Realize I Left Out of My Spiritual Travel Memoir (Upon Revisiting a Few Old Journals)

By Anne Liu Kellor

Did I emphasize enough how much I felt like a failure leaving China, leaving jobs, leaving my boyfriend, leaving my studies of Chinese, not accomplishing anything tangible, except to realize how weak I was? No. But on some level, that became the point of my book: not a triumph in accomplishment, but a triumph in being able to realize my own essence and needs.
Heart Radical was always a memoir, but for years I thought it had to be more informative, investigative, resear...

One Writer Conquers Her Fear of Crafts

By Mary Hannah Terzino

I recently completed a months-long writing course in which participants were required to design a hat to wear during the final gathering. The hat was to be decorated artfully to reflect one’s favorite lessons and mantras about writing. I’m not good at visual arts, and my first reaction was to dismiss the hat: How in hell is this related to writing?  Nevertheless, I remained silent about my misgivings, and soon received in the mail from the instructor a half-circle ...

Writing Into Belief: Notes in a Quiet Room

By Karen Richards

I didn’t start out intending to write a memoir. In fact, for many years―ignoring my own deep yearnings―I quietly avoided writing honestly about myself or my life. I tamped down thoughts about the meaning I imparted to ordinary things, the layered, complex connections between events, skeins of colored threads twisting on unruly spindles, tangled and tight in my efforts to contain them. Once in a while I wrote poetry, as if slowly turning a faucet, allowing just a few meas...

Small Press vs. Large: One Size Does Not Fit All

By Christina Consolino

My debut novel, Rewrite the Stars, launched in March with a small press. Reviews have been generally positive, something for which I’m immensely grateful, and some readers have even been so kind as to reach out via email. They’ve taken the time to say how the story has touched them or to commend me on the research I did to adequately portray a character living with PTSD. These emails breathe life into me. As an introvert, with a screen between me and the corresponde...