Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 58

Final Dress Rehearsal: On Finishing My MFA Thesis

By Ann V. Klotz

It was July 2020 when I, head of a private school, and already weary of protocols involving masks and social distance, applied to the MFA program in Creative Nonfiction at Bay Path University. The program director, Leanna Blackwell, who would become my advisor, offered me a place. I was elated that I had a reason to do something other than talk about Covid for part of each week.

At the beginning, I was certain my thesis would center on the stories I’d written about Eagl...

Can Book Critics and Writers Be Friends?

By Jenn McKee

Early this year, when my family agreed on a new-to-us spring break destination, my first thought was, “Oh! I know a local writer who’s super-familiar with that part of the world. I’ll ask for recs.”

I’d gotten to know this author in recent years, having interviewed her a handful of times about the women’s novels she published each year. I’d pitched (and landed) a newspaper feature when a celebrated movie star optioned one of her books for film; and I’d written additional b...

AWP: A Numerical Reckoning

By Brian Watson

Morgayne Kelley and Brian Watson

A couple of months have passed since I attended the 2023 AWP Conference in my beloved Seattle. The serotonin high has worn off and, after a glorious vacation, I am at home and settling back into my writing practice. Time to reflect.

Although I was intrigued by Allison K Williams’ post here on the Blog that described the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference as an event easily simulated at home, I ignored that advice....

What to Expect When People Learn You Write Humor…

By Shannon Reed

They will expect that you will be funny. As in, they expect you to be funny, to them, right now.Context will not matter, by the way. You are supposed to be hilarious, even if you are, say, about to be sedated for a colonoscopy.To be fair, that is a pretty funny situation. But maybe not to you.Still, you should have a joke ready. People will be disappointed if you don’t.“Make sure I’m still hooked up to the heart monitor when you give me the bill” is a decen...

Don’t Let Statler and Waldorf Frame Your Writing

By Amélie Baker

I imagine the two old men in the balcony – Statler and Waldorf – from the Muppets would have no patience for a writing workshop. They would quip something like, “You know why books are better than the radio? Because when you put a book down you can’t hear it anymore.” Or “This person wants to be a writer? What, they want to be right? They don’t know how wrong they are.” But I have encountered a version of these cantankerous old men in many conversations about writing.

T...

Talking to My Friends on the Phone Led to My Calling—Writing and Teaching

By Andrea Askowitz

My daughter, Tashi, just finished her first year of college. Over spring break, my dad asked her what she wants to study. “Dad stop,” I said and threw my arm in front of his chest to block him. The number of times this 19-year-old has been asked what she wants to study is in the hundreds. It pisses her off because she doesn’t know yet. It pisses me off too.

For years, and I mean like my whole life, I didn’t know what I wanted to study either, and when the question ca...

Notes from a Writing Teacher: One Final Lesson

By Jamey Temple

It’s the time of year when students send me letters. They thank me for their growth, for finding their voice. By the time I get these letters, I know these creative writing students like friends. I have read their stories about firsts and lasts, figuring out the in-between, the surprise of finding a turtle in a Walmart parking lot. Most of these letters are their goodbyes, the end of a road where I stop and watch them until I can’t see them anymore, until all I see is the ...

“All This Okayness” and I Suddenly Can’t Write

“Stop it and give yourself a chance.”
Aaron T. Beck, father of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

“You can dance.
You can jive.”
ABBA

By Nina Gaby

My last piece of completed writing was about the copper sinks we left behind in the 1792 cape we were abandoning. See? I have to use a loaded word like abandon to get the juice running. We sold the house we should have sold decades ago to move into an arty neighborhood in our hometown where we’ve wanted to return for years. The couple that boug...

Nostalgia: Abigail Thomas Tries to Understand Her Reaction to Old Work

By Abigail Thomas

I have been looking through a mess of writing for a lost poem, and come across a story so old that the paper is the color of weak tea. I recognize the typeface from the Olympia typewriter I found on 110th Street and managed to lug back to my apartment. God knows how many years ago that was. I loved that thing, it was as big and heavy and honorable as one of those beautiful old cash registers you never see anymore.  I wrote poems and stories on that typewriter until the c...

Design Your Life Around Writing: An Interview with Guinevere Turner

Guinevere Turner

Tamara MC interviews Guinevere Turner

Turner is a screenwriter (American Psycho, The Notorious Bettie Page), film director, actress, and now author of a debut memoir, When the World Didn’t End. Turner spent the first eleven years of her life (1968-1979) in n urban hippie commune with approximately a hundred adults and sixty children. Like other cults, there was an “Us versus Them” mentality, medical care was restricted, children were homeschooled, and girls were chosen t...