Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 63

Why I Wasn’t Ready to Go to AWP This Year

By Zach Semel

The day before I hopped on a cheap Las Vegas flight to Seattle, I apologized to one of my creative writing students. This student had sent me a beautiful lyric essay about mental illness and belonging, and I had torn it to shreds, dotting it with highlights and comments like a vengeful graffiti artist. I had marked countless moments where rather than describing a symptom or its roots or its meaning for the narrator, my student had written a quick, vague sum-up line. But as I ...

Writing Lessons from a Glorious Glutes Class

By Phyllis Brotherton

It sounded like a great challenge. I email the instructor to see if the class is too advanced for me, a just turned seventy-four-year-old woman with arthritis, but eight years of a solid exercise regimen. Maybe “regimen” is too strong a word, but a decent regular practice, three to five times a week, barring illness, injuries, recuperation from surgeries, a move from California to Nevada, and the occasional expresso martini lunch with friends.

The instructor assur...

On Restraint: Writing About Grief After Suicide

By Rita Malenczyk

My son Nick died by suicide four years ago; I’ve written and published several personal essays and poems about his death. One essay, about me trying to recover from the loss while teaching and writing a scholarly article (I’m an English professor), moves back and forth between my memories of Nick when he was alive and my actions in the present. The descriptions of my actions, Nick’s death, and my memories of him are not outwardly emotional, though I do occasionally mentio...

The Josie Rubio Scholarship: Who Was Josie?

Josie and her cat Lux

By Joselin Linder

I have a recording of Josie and I talking. It’s about a month before she died. There are parts where we talk about what we think happens after we die, but I’ll admit, in those parts it’s mostly me talking. The parts I like best are where we are reading through a Seamless menu laughing about the garbage some people will put on a hotdog, especially in Brooklyn—like baked beans and Doritos—because a hot dog is what Josie felt like eating for lunch. “I a...

Don’t Make Me Read Anything Longer Than 280 Characters

By Erin Hill

An open “Grades” tab on the computer balanced precariously on my lap. An open student reflection one tab over. Word Feud game with a friend on the iPad to my left. Indiana basketball on the TV in my sightline. Group chat on the phone to my right about our team’s poor shooting and lack of effort on defense.

And I wonder what my problem is.

I blame my atrophied focus and my mental fatigue on lots of reasonable things—my relentless schedule, my students’ needs, perimenopaus...

Writer to Writer: “You Just Made My Day”

By Charlotte Wilkins

When I sent a note of gratitude to author Laura Davis about her memoir The Burning Light of Two Stars, I said her writing was “close-to-the-bone.” Her heartfelt book examines the harsh reality of aging alongside her ailing and challenging mother, and I told Davis how on so many pages I’d read my own thoughts and emotions about my difficult mother, her illness, and death. Laura’s response to my note? You just made my day. I’m so grateful you took the time to write to m...

Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

By Abby Alten Schwartz

Imagine you own a property. You sketch plans for a house, consult experts, allow yourself six months to build a solid foundation and ensure you’re up for the challenge. You reach that milestone and keep going, learning new tools and discovering which tasks you have a knack for and which are more cost-effective to outsource. Then one day, you look around and realize you’re living in this home you made and it’s lovely, comfortable, and secure.

That’s how it felt to...

Why I Love Shame

Connect connect connect connect.

By Nerissa Nields

How to fall into a shame spiral:

1.  Rent your AirBnB studio for 30% off. Forgive the guest for nicking your van. Give him a 5-star review anyway. Watch as the ingrate gives you your first ever 4-star review. The kicker? His comment: Not worth the value.

2. Come across a high-school paper for a course you excelled in. Think, I’m going to show my 16-year-old so she can see how smart her old mama was. Turn to the last page to admire...

Second in the Story

A Ghostwriter’s Desire to Become the Subject

By Jody Gerbig

Recently, I signed a work-for-hire contract to ghostwrite a friend’s memoir, a task I have found as much self-reflective as other-contemplative. I have doubted that my voice matters. I have wondered whether I write for the credit or for the pleasure or for the money or to convey truth and beauty. I have even asked—in this new world of ChatGPT—whether anyone can write another’s story, or, in this case, does it have to be me?

...

Everyone Loves a Metaphor—But What if the Metaphor Doesn’t Love You Back?

Sometimes a metaphor isn’t gonna help.

By Peter Mountford

As a writing instructor and coach, I encounter many people starting in their writing life who are positively smitten with metaphors, similes, and figurative language. It’s understandable. But figurative language only really works at all when it works really well. At its worst you get cliches, or you get something like: 

Gary was so tall that being near him was like standing beside a giant.

Does this mean he’s twenty feet ta...