Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 55

And Then What Happened? Reclaiming Your Stories

By Kevin Wood

I scoffed at my writer friend’s suggestion that I reframe a particularly dark story in “a more hopeful light.”  I’ve written a number of stories from my life. Some are published; others languish as variously completed drafts. My friend’s advice felt Pollyanna-ish, but this friend had recently had some breakthroughs in her own writing, so I indulged the idea. With that shift, the story was picked up by a widely read publication within a month. Huh.

Still dubious, I decided to t...

What Seven Intelligent Women Know for Sure About Writing

Ed. by Cassie Premo Steele

Foreground: Aliya. From left: Elizabeth, Sondos, Shirley, Cassie, (Cassie’s wife, Susanne), Candace. Not pictured: Kelly. 

During a writing retreat held this summer on the South Carolina coast and led by writer and writing coach Cassie Premo Steele, participants met under a gazebo next to the ocean for a discussion.

The question posed: What do you know for sure about writing?

Aliya: I will go first because I identify most with my role as a physician, and I’m...

Don’t Hold Back

By Sarah Cannon

For years, I allowed a few things to hold me back from writing. These are the top three:

1) I had children when I was young and decided to stay home for a few years.

2) When I was ready to go back to work, my partner survived a near-fatality.

3) I spent the next five years in a panic.

I also didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I was satisfied when I was reading to my children or to myself, or thinking of stories, or telling stories. I was having an awful tim...

Tips for Promoting Your First Book: Even When You Feel Clueless

By Jennifer Lang

A few months before my first book launches into the world, I find myself, like so many writers trying to juggle writing and book promotion, overwhelmed.  All week, I tackle a learn-as-I-go list: contact book bloggers, research book awards, create Canva flyers. Some tasks are self-imposed, others are necessary, particularly when working with a small, independent press.

Yesterday, amidst checking the ARCs of my book, Places We Left Behind: a memoir-in-miniature, for typo...

Three Books at Once? Say What???

By Sue Fagalde Lick

I have three books coming out next year: A memoir, a full-length poetry book, and a poetry chapbook. Different genres, different subjects, different publishers. I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s happening. I have also had a run of acceptances for short pieces.

I should be overjoyed. Isn’t this what I wanted?

But I feel guilty boasting about my three books when other writers are not able to get even one acceptance. It’s the “people are starving overseas while I’m...

Spare, Busy or Retro? In Search of the Right Book Cover

By Ronnie Blair

The graphic artist wanted me to judge a cover for my book.

Here we go, I thought, with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

I clicked on her email attachment.

A lot had led up to that moment. After all, covers are a big deal. Since childhood, we have all heard, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Also since childhood, we have all happily judged books by their covers.

But judging is one thing. Creating a cover from scratch is something else altogether, which i...

Creative Sleep and the Writing Life, Part II

By William T. Vandegrift, Jr.

In an essay for the Brevity Blog titled Creative Sleep and the Writing Life, I explored various sleep patterns and how they have had an impact not only on me, but on many well-known creative people throughout the ages, ranging from Leonardo da Vinci to Thomas Edison.

I advocated the biphasic sleep pattern, which is common in Europe and Latin America. You sleep for a brief period during the night and then take a nap in the afternoon. I find that this regimen...

Embracing Your Range: Complex Story, Layered Voice

By Dorian Fox

I sometimes catch myself compartmentalizing emotions in my mind, as if each feeling—elation, despair, hope—lives in its own apartment, ordering in from GrubHub every night and never talking to its neighbors. But of course, our emotional lives are messier than that; our interior states a chorus of many notes and tones. And as we write about our lives, we bring new emotional insights to past experiences, adding even more layers of feeling to the mix.

It’s a lot to wrap our h...

Blending Genre in Pursuit of Mystery: An Interview with Howard Fishman

By Sandell Morse

In December of 2010, musician and culture writer, Howard Fishman was at a party when a song seemed to lift him out of place and time. “The song swallowed me. The party froze. The room disappeared,” he wrote in the newly released To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse. The song Fishman heard was “Talkin’ Like You,” a song Converse had recorded in her Greenwich Village Apartment in the early fifties. Converse sang in a plaintive voice; she ...

Hello in There

By Harriet Riley

A few tables and chairs litter the room. The walls are unadorned. Along with coffee, cake and brownies, this room contains lives.

Each Wednesday morning when I arrive at the community center, the students sit in a circle singing along with a mandolin-player. When she finishes, we all push the tables into the middle and arrange the chairs so everyone has a place. I pass out lined paper and pencils. We are now here to write.

As a creative writing teacher, I’ve written ...