Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 20

Brevity’s Message of Gratitude, 2025

Amid the revelry and resolutions, the champagne and streamers, the concern and excitement about the year to come, Brevity‘s editors want to send a message of gratitude. Our magazine has been a pioneer in the brief nonfiction form since 1997, a fortunate 28-year run so far, and the Brevity Blog is now entering its 19th year of providing craft essays and discussions of the writing and publishing life. None of this is possible without our readers and without those of you who generously support ...

Am I Giving Too Much Away? Publishing Essays Related to Your Memoir

By Allison K Williams

Shakespeare’s guy who gave too much away

A writer asks: If I publish an essay based on my memoir, am I giving too much away?

The hard truth? If you’re “giving too much away” in one essay, you don’t actually have a book, you have an essay.

Material worthy of a memoir doesn’t fit in 1200-3500 words; if it satisfyingly does, the scope of your story may be too narrow. A classic exercise for novelists is to write a short-story version of their book, including all the ...

Writing Nonfiction as a Path to Lasting Resolutions, No Champagne Required

By Becky Blake

The ball is dropping in Times Square. The clock is—wait, does anyone have clocks anymore? Okay, the clock is nowhere to be seen, but our phones are indicating a New Year approaching.

Have you made a resolution yet? Or maybe five? Or do you plan to just go with the same ones from last year: get fit, get a better job, rev up your love-life, see friends and family more often, and spend more time on your writing.

Great! Maybe this will be the year one of your heartfelt goals w...

An Open Letter to Your Family and Friends This Holiday Season

By Heidi Croot

On a sunny October afternoon last year, my 33-year-old cousin told me his recovery program involved group writing, and he’d written a love letter to his recently deceased parents.

I recognized the writer’s eternal plea and asked if I could read it.

He literally galloped into the house to find his notebook. 

We stood under the fall canopy of reds, greens and golds—his sister, grandmother and me—and listened to him read aloud, a lanky six-foot-four boy on the cusp of ...

Who Gets a Spot on the River of Memoir?

By Margaret Anne Mary Moore

“Am I in your book?”

“How much am I in the book, though?”

Encountering these questions posed by friends months and weeks before launching my debut memoir Bold, Brave, and Breathless: Reveling in Childhood’s Splendiferous Glories While Facing Disability and Loss grew exhausting.

“You realize this is like a test of the friendship, right? How often I appear in the book will tell me how greatly you value me as a friend.”

My stomach churned each time some...

Fear Not: Publishing is Alive and Well — Yes, Even for Memoir and Literary Fiction

By Peter Mountford

As 2024 draws to a close, I’ve been sifting through the stats on Publisher’s Marketplace for the year and am pleasantly surprised that SO MANY books have been accepted for publication. 

People love claiming that book publishing is dying because of AI. Or e-books and Amazon. Or because social media is replacing reading. 

But even without a juggernaut bestseller—2024 has no equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey, Harry Potter, or The Hunger Games—lots of books are being acq...

Literary Citizenship: What’s in It for You?

By Charlotte Wilkins

As I write my own memoir, I’ve been learning how to be a good literary citizen. Since I’m not a book-published author whose name is useful for blurbs, or big on social media, I try to support fellow writers with reviews, requests to bookstores and libraries to stock their new book, suggesting their work to book groups, and attending author readings and talks.

As writers, we hope that when we set out on our book tour, shiny new book in hand, that someone shows up. I ...

IN A FLASH: A Gathering of Writers Expands into a New Literary Magazine

By Cynthia Allen and Leanne Rose Sowul

We jokingly call ourselves The Flashies: Leanne Rose Sowul, Cynthia (Cindy) Allen, Nina Lichtenstein, Kate Lewis and Casey Mulligan Walsh. In 2022, Leanne posted an open invitation on the Hippocampus Facebook page with the goal to form a writing group devoted to Flash Creative Nonfiction (CNF), one of the most popular forms of storytelling today. Soon, a handful of us were meeting monthly on Zoom to workshop each other’s writing and provide encouragem...

Sit Down, You’re Not Finished Yet: Writing Advice From My Dad

By Judy Sandler

I used to believe that writing was a talent that one either possessed or lacked. I thought it was a genetically inherited trait, like athleticism, musical ability, a knack for mathematics.

My father cured me of that belief.

My father was a writer: a journalist for The Baltimore Sun, an author of several books about Baltimore, a feature writer for magazines in the 1970s through 2018. When we traveled as a family, he kept detailed journals, clacked away afternoons at hi...

You Can’t Wrap a Five-Figure Deal: Best Gifts For Writers in 2025

By Allison K Williams

The season’s closing in–even where I live, in Dubai, “Winter Shopping Festival” has decked the malls with candy canes, twinkly lights and plastic evergreens (embrace the true spirit of the holidays!).

You may be wondering what to get the writers in your life. Or someone you love has asked that horrifying question, “What do you want for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Diwali*/Yule?”

…An agent, book auction and five-figure deal?

…Jesus to show up and explain pointe...