Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 66
February 21, 2023
Turning Your Obsession Into A Book
By L.L. Kirchner
As you may’ve guessed from the title, Maria Teresa Hart’s DOLL (Bloomsbury, November 2022) is about dolls. How did Hart—whom I knew to be a writer of sharp, witty essays about life and travel—come to write such a thing? And get it published?
Hart’s book was part of Bloomsbury’s series Object Lessons, online essays and books that delve deeply into the stories behind everyday objects. Hart describes the union as “a dream come true.”
“I went in un-agented,” she says. “A...
February 20, 2023
Falling In Love Again
By Vicki Mayk
I spent my childhood hanging out in the stacks of my local public library—one of the few places I was allowed to go alone in my Pennsylvania town. The walk there—one I can still take in memory—took me through glass double doors, past the World War I memorial in the lobby listing my grandfather’s name among those who served, and up the marble staircase where the weight of many feet had worn a small well in the center of each stair.
On the second floor, silence was broken on...
February 17, 2023
How Not to Write an Op-Ed (or Errors Made My 1st Time Out)
By Charles G. Thompson
I have written and published a number of nonfiction pieces. A personal essay about seeing my dead father shopping at Trader Joes. Another essay about my love life as a gay man in Los Angeles. An article about how my perpetual depression lessened during COVID. But, until recently, I had not tried my hand at an op-ed. Yes, similar to writing more personal nonfiction, but different.
The idea for the editorial was spawned by a headline in the Los Angeles Times, “Growi...
February 16, 2023
Facts Create Feelings: World-Building in Memoir
Make readers cry for you, not with you.
By Allison K Williams
I always write down the notes. When it’s my turn for workshop feedback, no matter how much I disagree, no matter whether I put “Stupidhead said…” before a note that seems irrelevant, I write every single critique in my notebook. I learned this as an actor, when a director told me, “Write down all the notes, or you won’t remember the note, you’ll only remember how you felt when you got the note.” Examining my notebook a few da...
February 15, 2023
Flash: The Art and Craft of Writing Short
A Q &A WITH GRANT FAULKNER
By Andrea A. Firth
Grant Faulkner has been writing flash since the genre hit the literary scene. He is co-founder and editor of the journal 100 Word Story and published a collection of one hundred 100-word stories called Fissures. His latest book is The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story. Brevity Blog editor Andrea A. Firth spoke with Grant about writing short prose.
Andrea A. Firth: Congratulations on the new book! You write flash fiction and y...
February 14, 2023
How to Write About the Boy You Once Loved: A Guide by My 18-Year-Old Students (and Me)
By Maddy Frank
Assert that past you is a fool compared to present you. Past you had crushes on boys who were wrong for her. Past you swooned. Past you was influenced by swoopy hair and smirks. Present you would never stoop so low. She writes about it, but she does not succumb to it. She has narrative distance from herself.
Describe any middle or high school love interest with a healthy dose of grace. He was actually quite nice to you. He was in upper-level math. His swoopy hair was mod...
February 13, 2023
5 Reasons an Agent Might Say No (and How to Get to Yes)
3 tips to get your words into the world.
by Katie Bannon
Rejection is an unfortunate, but inevitable, part of the querying process. Agents receive thousands of queries a year and have to pass on the vast majority of them. In fact, many memoirists end up querying 50-100 agents before getting a “yes.” But the odds of catching an agent’s attention increases when you understand what they’re looking for, and what might make them pass.
The querying process 101:
1) Send a query letter ...
February 10, 2023
Just Write a Paragraph: On Assignment in Outback Australia
By Denise Mills
Driving along the loose red dirt on the way to Booka on the Warrego River, outside Bourke, the car slips sharply to the right and I wonder, briefly, if this is how I meet my end. But I have faith in the driver, my partner. He’s the kind of man it’s easy to put faith in. Broad shoulders, big hands. Yet he has a softness about him. He’s a thinker. I like a thinker. Sensing that everything is okay, or will be soon, I hold my breath and wait for the moment to pass and for him t...
February 9, 2023
When Memoir and Poetry Meet
AN INTERVIEW WITH TANIA PRYPUTNIEWICZ
By Lisa Rizzo
Poet and tarot teacher, Tania Pryputniewicz’smemoir in poems, The Fool in the Corn (Saddle Road Press, 2022), travels through pivotal periods in her life beginning in early childhood on an Illinois commune and ending with the death of her mother. Poet and memoirist, Lisa Rizzo met with Tania over Zoom to discuss the writer’s decision to meld poetry and memoir together in her new book.
Lisa Rizzo: Why did you decide on using poetry i...
February 8, 2023
The Power of Mad Libs
Tell them what to write without telling them what to write.
By Allison K Williams
You’ve seen it if you’ve written for the Brevity Blog and I was your editor. Or if I’ve ever live-edited your work in a workshop, or if I’ve been lucky enough to work with you as a client: Mad Libs.
Remember that fill-in-the-blanks game we played at parties and in the car? A flip-pad of short “stories” missing key words. Blank lines labeled “adjective,” “noun,” and “adverb” cued the leader to ask the gr...
