Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 120

Yes, This Will Be Expensive

By Judith Gelt

Mine was a clever ad. The local Jewish paper has around 16,000 weekly subscribers from Denver and the surrounding area, and my story is about growing up in Denver within a Jewish family with mental illness, and how I made my way out, found my way back, and came to understand and forgive (even myself).

With Hanukkah beginning in two days, my part-time-publicist brain planned a 3 x 4 in. color ad for $900.00:

Who Needs Hanukkah Gelt?

How about Judith Sara Gelt’s

It would run on the...

Fixing Bad Writing in Creative Nonfiction is Not Politically Correct, it’s Essential

By Kristin Gallagher

I recently completed a memoir writing workshop with a well-known writing center in New York City. During our ten weeks together, we did the things writers do—we provided feedback on one another’s work and discussed the craft of writing.

As with people in real life, the characters that appeared in our drafts were complicated. They made mistakes. They failed at some endeavors and excelled at others. Some committed crimes, told lies, broke bonds with loved ones. They ...

3 Goals Every Writer Should Make in the New Year!

By Sweta Srivastava Vikram 

Hello, 2021! The New Year is here! After the theatrics and tragedies of 2020, we have learned that life happens when we are least expecting it. No matter what, we have to carve out time for our creativity (whatever that might look for you on a given day) and protect it fiercely without taking on the performance pressures. As Franz Kafka said, “A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”

Everyone is different as is their relationship with writing. W...

Inter-Office Memo: Good Work, Writers!

To: Self-Employed Writer

From: The CHFO (Chief High-Five Officer)

Date: January 1, 2021

Subject: You’ve Earned Employee of the Year! Again!

I am writing to congratulate you on the commendable efforts and energy you put into delivering on your 2020 production quota. Nobody here wrote more words on more pages than you. You wrote and rewrote. You edited and edited again. Yes, you really did type this year.

Your ability to keep the volume of rejection letters organized was ex...

The Year of the Writer (redux)

Next year definitely the Pulitzer longlist…

How was 2017 2020? Yeah, this post I wrote three years ago is STILL ASTOUNDINGLY RELEVANT. You know that feeling of low-grade background stress you’ve sustained for nearly four years, ramping up a level each year? You’re not alone, fellow writer.

So 2020 was a dumpster on fire while swept away in a flood, yes, but how was your writing? Because now is a great time to consider what you did. Not scold yourself for what you meant to do and couldn’t. Let’s ...

Barry Lopez: On Art and Living Well

The author Barry Lopez passed away on Christmas Day, and we will truly miss him. His sentences were beautiful, and he was as well: setting an example as an artist, a citizen, and a human being.

Thankfully, he left us with so much of his wisdom and heart, including this passage, on the subject of hope and why we make art:

“In conversations over the years with other writers and artists about what we’re actually supposed to be doing, I’ve been struck by how often, deep down, the talk b...

Backstage and Under the Lights: A Review of Jennifer Worley’s Neon Girls

By Nancy Jainchill

More than twenty years before Jennifer Worley takes us behind the scenes of the Lusty Lady club, in Neon Girls: A Stripper’s Education in Protest and Power, I was slinking across the stage of one of the many strip joints in San Francisco’s North Beach. ‘Sex work,’ a term later introduced by prostitute, performer and activist Carol Leigh, highlighted that our activities involved the same economic and labor considerations as any trade or profession. While the term wasn’t in use ...

Blurb Your Enthusiasm

By Lisa Kusel

A woman in one of my Facebook writing groups recently solicited advice on how best to approach a “rockstar” level person for a blurb, given that she’s a “nobody.” I laughed when I read the post, remembering a time long ago…

…It’s 2005 and my second book/first novel is soon to be released and my editor is all askew with worry that I don’t have any blurbs for its back cover. She’d sent off 30 galleys to A-list writers, but none had yet to respond. I suspected not one of tho...

How Good Is Your Writing?

You want to be in Modern Love. The Paris Review. A Big Five publisher’s forthcoming list. Are you good enough? How can you tell if submitting would be a waste of time?

It’s hard to judge the quality of our own work. Most of our friends are more supportive than critical—thank goodness! But in order to figure out if our own writing belongs in the publication venue we admire, we need to step back and take a long hard look. Since it’s hard to judge your own work, start by judging someone else’s.

Wha...

When Is It Art?

By Diana Wagman

“Person A, say hello.”

“Hello,” I said.

I was speaking into my cell phone and hoping my reception didn’t crap out, as it does sometimes at home. I had signed up to participate for an hour in an odd kind of pandemic theater. Two strangers call a phone number. A robotic voice answers and tells us a story, stopping intermittently to ask us unrelated questions.  

“Person B, describe where you’re sitting.”

I found the whole exchange remarkable. I knew nothing about ...