Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 52

Looking Back, Moving Forward: Writing Well About Trauma

By Jessica Handler

Two hatboxes covered in beautiful malachite-green marbled paper, big around as snare drums, sit high on a bookshelf in my studio. I keep them safely out of my reach until I need them.

My mother stored mementos in those boxes. Yellow Kodak envelopes of family photos, their brown acetate strips of negative tucked into the flaps. Birthday cards that smell of talcum, fading beige Western Union telegrams, typed letters whose return addresses are buildings that no longer st...

The Writing Group: A Fable

By Lea Page

The usual five gathered around a table at a local restaurant: Novelist, Historian, and Fabulist—all men—and Poet and Memoirist—both women. Living in a small town in a wide-open state, the pool was limited. How lucky they were, the capable five, to have found each other.

On this day, however, the Historian brought a friend who introduced himself as an autobiographer, not a memoirist. In direct contravention of the rules, the Autobiographer launched into an attack on memoir in...

The Best Editing Advice: Read and Record Your Work Out Loud

By Charlotte Maya

The best editing advice I received when I was writing my memoir seemed horrifying at first. I was taking a workshop with Emily Rapp Black, and she described the most efficient editing technique she knows: first, record yourself reading your entire manuscript; then, listen to yourself read the whole thing.

Kind of makes you want to return to the dreadful drafting stage, doesn’t it?

Here is how it works:

Press Record:

Buckle up. Step one takes a while. The avera...

Writing as Therapy Doesn’t Mean Bad Writing

By Nancy McCabe

“She’s just writing for therapy,” we sometimes say, meaning that the work seems self-indulgent or self-pitying or self-absorbed. But using writing to merely wallow or vent is not, according to research, all that therapeutic—as studies have shown, it is writing to find meaning that boosts immune function and promotes healing.

Nevertheless, I feel like I’m breaking a taboo when I make the shamefully unartistic admission that I find writing to be therapeutic.

*

Many y...

Crónica: The Platypus of Prose

AN INTERVIEW WITH JAVIER SINAY

Javier Sinay is an award-winning author and journalist based in Buenos Aires. In 2015 he won the Premio de la Fundación Gabo* for the crónica “Fast, Furious, Dead” published in Rolling Stone Argentina and translated here.  Sinay’s story is an intimate, layered, deep dive into the murders of six delinquent youths, the use of excessive force by the off-duty policemen who killed them, and the complex web of issues that contribute to the increasing volatility bet...

How to Submit to Contests: Behind-the-Scenes at the American Literary Review

By Anna Chotlos

Submitting to contests can be a fantastic way to get your writing out in the world. Beyond the prize and the confidence boost that comes with winning or being named a finalist, meeting a deadline can provide an extra jolt of motivation to finish a piece or shore up your determination to keep revising. Plus, many publications also consider contest submissions for publication in their regular issues.

How do you know if a contest is a good fit for your work? How do you appr...

Anecdotes Are Great for Cocktail Parties: Essays Must Do More

By Lisa Rosenberg

Once, I almost lost my dress in front of the president of the United States. That’s become one of my go-to stories when I need to fill a conversational lull during a dinner party. When I decided to write a collection of essays, it was one of the first stories I put on paper.

After that, every humorous anecdote I ever shared over drinks became an essay. I filled my laptop with dozens of stories; thousands of words. Soon, I thought, I would have a collection. Maybe even ...

Finding the Mini in Memoir

AN INTERVIEW WITH JENNIFER LANG

By Lisa Rizzo

Jennifer Lang

Writer and teacher Jennifer Lang’s memoir, Places We Left Behind: a memoir-in-miniature (Vine Leaves Press 2023) takes the reader on her journey with her French-born husband, Phillipe. Using experimental prose and forms, Lang reveals her struggle with their different religious needs while making peace with Israel as their final home. Poet and memoirist, Lisa Rizzo met with Jennifer to discuss her artistic decisions.

Lisa Rizz...

How to Shine Glory on Chapter 2

By Heidi Croot

Prologues and first chapters are such prima donnas. All the attention flows their way. They even get their own acronym, coined by author Allison K Williams, who calls on them to be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, and responsible for Kicking off the narrative. In other words, “SUCK.”

It sucks all right.

And why? Because no such glory light shines on Chapter 2s—ever the bridesmaids, never the bride, dragging the weight of Chapter 1 behind them like a train. Yet second chap...

How’s This Hollywood Writers and Actors Strike Going for You?

By Karen Rizzo

I saw an acquaintance at a coffee shop the other day—a funny screenwriter I worked with briefly—and his partner, also a writer. Of course, I wondered how he was doing during this Hollywood writers/actors strike. After all, we were kind of in the same boat. My husband, James, who usually makes his living as an actor, was working only the picket lines. As a freelance writer, I was in In-Between Gigs Purgatory.

As I approached my acquaintance’s table we made eye contact and ...