Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 114

A Conversation with Naturalist Writer Scott Weidensaul

By Lynn Haraldson

Twenty years ago, when I worked at a small newspaper in northwest Pennsylvania, the local Audubon chapter asked if I would interview naturalist Scott Weidensaul to publicize his upcoming lecture. They gave me a copy of his book, Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds (North Point Press, 1999), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Although impressed by the Pulitzer nod, I was skeptical about the topic. I liked birds and all, but four h...

On Memoir and Bearing Witness, & Warhol’s Piss Art

By Marcia Aldrich

In the winter of 2013, in blizzard-like conditions, the Associated Writing Programs had their annual conference in Boston. I was on a panel, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate Loved Ones: Exploitation vs. Documentation in Creative Nonfiction,” which I viewed as ironic since Companion to An Untold Story, a memoir about the suicide of my friend, was being celebrated at the conference as well and could have been Exhibit A in the discussion. You’d think the topic would have b...

Constructing Stories

By Julie Flattery

I started writing for a building and construction magazine recently. My first assignment was to interview a painting and drywall contracting company. I can feel you yawning right now! It’s okay, I yawned too. I also rolled my eyes—a lot—and considered backing out. But I had been wanting to turn many years of ghostwriting and publishing articles for architects who couldn’t write into publishing articles with my own byline. I had to start somewhere.

I took the job…and ultimately ...

Of Charcuterie, Teleportation, and the Digressive Essay

In her latest book, Processed Meats: Essays on Food, Flesh, and Navigating Disaster, Nicole Walker continues her deep essayistic dive into sustainability, climate change, global food issues, and her own eating obsessions, layering in the overlapping impact of our unsettling pandemic year. Her insights remain refreshingly honest and are, at times, spiced with unexpected humor. Brevity founder and fellow pancetta-enthusiast Dinty W. Moore interviews Walker on her book, on digression in the ess...

A Review of Nicole Walker’s Processed Meats

By Jenn Gibbs

Parenthood is meeting daily the hypocrite within.

Standing in the produce aisle, I weigh my kids’ need to eat greens against the karmic repercussions of a plastic clamshell. Should I buy the unwashed bulk kale? When I’m on deadline (which is always), that is a sure path to a container of slime behind the mayo. And it’s been hard enough propelling two teen boys through the agonies of online school to add food prep to their chores.

Also, and this is important, that meaty...

What is the One Thing the Pandemic Has Taught You About Writing?

By Sweta Srivastava Vikram

When my mother passed away suddenly in the summer of 2014, I wrote a book of poems about her titled Saris and a Single Malt. I started to write the collection when we got the phone call that she (out of nowhere) was feeling unwell, and my father had to rush her to the hospital. I wrote as we boarded the plane to New Delhi. I wrote when I found out that the doctor had to put my mother on a ventilator. I wrote when we landed in India’s capital, and my brother hug...

I Don’t Want to Play

By Sue Fagalde Lick

9 a.m. Tuesday morning

Remember how when we were kids, sometimes we’d just walk away from what the other kids were doing? “I don’t want to play,” we’d say. And we’d go home and pout.

Well, that’s how I feel today. I don’t want to play this writer game anymore. Not the writing itself, but all the other nonsense that goes with it.

I think I blew my Zoom talk last night. I blathered for 45 minutes straight. With “share screen” showing my handout and the audience on “mute,” I cou...

It’s all in the Details: The Importance of Naming Things, Using Sensory Description, and Giving Specific Examples

By Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

Let’s say I want to tell you about my hometown. What if I told you it’s small and the downtown is on two streets and it has stores and places to eat? Are you getting a picture in your head? Probably not.

What if instead I told you the town’s name is Yellow Springs, and the downtown stretches across Xenia Avenue and Dayton Street, with a one-block street called Short Street? If you’re hungry, you can eat at Ye Olde Trail Tavern or the Wind’s Cafe or order at the ...

Follow the Endless Dirt Road, or, Why I am Awesome: My So-Called Plan for World Domination

By Ray Hernandez

On Goofy Titles, or Why I Use Cultural References Almost Nobody Remembers.

I grew up loving Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. I remember that every episode ended with the announcement of the next episode’s title, which was always in two parts. So there you have it.

On Reflection, or What the Heck Just Happened?

At the end of a recent workshop with Terese Mailhot, Writing for Survival, offered through Corporeal Writing, I reflected on the experience and my next steps as a writer.

Th...

Ripping the Seams: On Writing and Quilting

By Morgan Baker

I looked over the quilt on my sewing table and sighed. Just as I thought. The rows of squares and rectangles didn’t line up. Time for the seam ripper. With the quilt in my lap, I tore out the stitches I had carefully made a few minutes earlier.

I had designed this quilt for my 25-year-old daughter who moved in with her father and me this past year, with its purples, teals, greens and blues. Ellie has had a terrible pandemic year with a break up and a stalled acting care...