Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 59
June 2, 2023
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...
June 1, 2023
How Publishing My First Book Gave Me a New Appreciation for Libraries
By Julie Vick
The road to having your first book come out is filled with ups and downs. It’s like being on an amusement park elevator ride where each new door might open to display either a scene of your friends presenting you with a cake decorated like your book cover or a stranger dressed in a hockey mask handing you a breakdown of your latest sales rankings by the hour. Achieving a lifelong dream is gratifying, but can also come with a lot of expectations, some of which don’t live up t...
May 31, 2023
A Writer’s Ritual for Rejection
NOT A GOOD FIT
TAKING A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
DON’T TAKE THIS REJECTION TO HEART
THE TIMING ISN’T QUITE RIGHT
NOT A REFLECTION ON YOU
A HEARTBREAKING DECISION
DOESN’T MEET PRESENT NEEDS
All these phrases come from rejection letters I’ve received. Not from love interests, but from literary publications. The language around sending in writing for publication—submitting—mirrors the language of dating and relationships. And the rejection can sting nearly as much. No matter how ...
May 30, 2023
The Memoir-in-Pieces Says Yes
By Beth Kephart
Years ago, when I began to teach memoir at the University of Pennsylvania, I drew a conclusion I had not foreseen: Writing memoir was no longer my job, or my privilege.
Creating a community of trust among truth seekers was. Listening for the pulse and purpose of others’ stories. Developing not just an editorial stance, line by line, but a philosophical one about what memoir could be and was not. Reading lists and meaningful prompts. Individualized care and group dynamics...
May 26, 2023
Red Flags for Writers: When Publishing Goes All Wrong
By Lainy Carslaw
This is not an easy story to tell. Mostly because it’s embarrassing and I’m ashamed of my stupidity. And also because I still don’t know how this story ends.
But I want other writers to learn from my mistakes in their efforts to publish. So here we go.
At the beginning of 2021, I landed an agent (Yay!) I was on cloud nine and imagined that I was within reach of my life-long dream of publishing a novel.
I should have known better. There were signs.
It all start...
May 25, 2023
Why I Write – Two Truths and a Lie
By Alexander Forston
I have no traditionally valuable skills; by this I refer to those that are commonly called “marketable” or “in demand.” I do not understand money management nor the value of labor nor why all of society’s functions must occur in the daylight. I have been a night owl since I was born; you can ask my mother about it. I often find it unpleasant to talk to strangers, but I can do it when I must. I perform diligently and to the best of my ability when I have a job,...
May 24, 2023
5 Things I’ve Learned from Writing (and Editing) Mental Health Stories
By Katie Bannon
Mental health is often branded “taboo” and, for writers of memoir and personal essay, these stories can be our most vulnerable and challenging material. But there’s a reason these types of narratives are so sought after. At their best, they speak to our darkest truths and teach us what it means to be human.
I’ve been writing about mental health for over a decade now. And as a developmental editor, I’ve worked with dozens of memoirists and essayists writing their own ment...
May 23, 2023
Lucky Author Syndrome
By Sandra A. Miller
When my friend Lisa and I received our MFAs in 1996, we both immediately scored New York literary agents with our just-finished manuscripts. Within a few months, Lisa, twenty-six to my thirty-two, sold her novel to a major publisher and went on to land a series of book deals that set her on the literary path she still walks today.
My road was rockier. My MFA novel, although admired for its fine writing and plot twists, received a pass from all of the Big Ten publish...
May 22, 2023
The Hover
By Carolyn Roy-Bornstein
When I retired at 65 and closed my medical practice, I looked forward to long stretches of time to write, something I rarely had when I worked.
My days then were filled with sick visits and well-baby checks, hospital rounding and conference calls. For all my adult life, writing had been catch-as-catch-can. I carved out time in the morning, before the rest of the household woke up, to add a few precious paragraphs to that half-written essay, to polish and submit ...
May 19, 2023
The Treachery of Words
after René Magritte
By Kristina R. Gaddy
This is not truth.
It is my version of events.
It is how I remember it happened.
It is how they remembered how it happened.
It is an oral history.
It is what someone dares say on the record.
It is the story of someone who wants to be on the record.
It is what the person asking the questions wants to hear.
It is the version of events that can be found in the historical record.
It is the story the police chose to write do...
