Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 7

Speak Calmly and Carry a Big Ladder: On Writing My Way Forward

By Abby Alten Schwartz

When my daughter was 10, it occurred to me that she’d never been to Disney World, and if I wanted her to experience it while she was still young enough to find the kingdom magical, I’d have to plan a vacation. My husband and I decided we’d fly to Orlando that fall and celebrate her 11th birthday at one of the themed resort hotels.

Simple, right? But here’s the thing. It was 2007 and my daughter had two chronic illnesses that made traveling more complicated. She ha...

I Love You But I’ll Never Read Your Substack

By Rebecca Morrison

Let me begin with the most honest thing I can say about writing and our friendship: I love you. Not the casual, emoji-laced love that comes with birthday texts and “this why we’re BFFs” memes, but the full-throated, thirty-text-analysis-over-a-rando-giving-you-side-eye-at-Trader-Joe’s kind of love.

I would organize your garage with a label-maker and a spreadsheet, while you sat on the couch sipping a LaCroix and saying things like, “I just have so much stuff,” as if ...

How The Sacred Lake of Poetry Can Bring Wisdom to Our Prose

By Claire Polders

I’m not a poet.

I voiced this denial multiple times in my life and with complete conviction. It’s the first thing I told Alyson Shelton when she invited me to contribute to her “Where I’m From” series, which will run its 200th poem this summer.

I’m not a poet.

The art of poetry lies at the end of an uphill path like a sacred glacial lake, mist-covered and deep with memory. Centuries of noble pines surround the lake to protect it from invaders like me who long to ...

Small Spaces, Small Stories: Essaying the Lives of Girls and Women

Sarah Fawn Montgomery

Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s small collection of small essays, Abbreviate, examines how the injustice and violence of girlhood leads women to accept—and even claim—small spaces and stories. In the interview below, Mialise Carney asks Montgomery about crafting brief essays with complex threads and the freedom of writing nonfiction in our current political climate.

Mialise Carney: In Abbreviate, you use the flash essay form to explore girls’ being socialized to take up less ...

Writing with Essential Questions: Lessons from Barbie and Billie Eilish

By Jennifer Leigh Selig

I usually pride myself on resisting cultural hype, especially the silly stuff. But I made an exception for Barbie. Dressing in pink, a friend and I prepared for a frivolous afternoon of popcorn and eye-candy, taking time away from our highbrow, writerly selves to enjoy some lowbrow comedy and support a female director.

What we weren’t prepared for—what I suspect no one was prepared for—was how deeply moving the movie would be. We expected broad humor, we welcomed...

Dear Writer, Don’t Bite

Dear Writer/Artist/Creative Person of Some Type—

We have been admiring your writing/painting/non-specific creative thing for a while/some time/the length of time it takes to do a Google search now and would like to invite you to take part in our exclusive community/an exciting new venture/boutique editing service with a (very slight) possibility for publication. Read on for more details!

Let us feature you/represent you/publish you/inflate your ego/prove your mother wrong/whisper in yo...

Writing Fast When You Prefer Going Slow

By Patrice Gopo

Recently, I was in Anchorage, Alaska—my hometown—for school visits and events connected to the publication of my second picture book. That book indirectly mentions an Anchorage grocery store that is important to my family’s history. In a moment of synchronicity, my visit home coincided with the seventy-five-year-old store’s final week of operation.

As I said goodbye to the store that long ago helped my Jamaican parents connect with their new Alaskan home, an idea began t...

Does Brevity Accept AI-Generated Work?

By Dinty W. Moore

To be brief, as our name promises, the answer is no.

Brevity, the literary magazine, does not accept work that has been produced through use of AI or encourage the use of AI in creative endeavors. As our Managing Editor Zoë Bossiere wrote on social media two days ago, “we do not and will never consider essays written—even partially—by LLMs. Ethics aside, we consider AI anathema to what makes art worth making and stories worth telling.”

The Brevity Blog, a separate ...

Solstice: A Letter to the Brevity Blog Community

Dear Writers,

Each June, we look back at what’s been published during the past twelve months on The Brevity Blog. And we’re always amazed by the depth and breadth of the essays that make up this far-reaching discussion of creative nonfiction writing—an umbrella term for the myriad ways true stories are told. Here we highlight several essays from the last year to showcase the many interesting ideas and insights you’ve contributed and what we’ve learned from you.

Ratika Deshpande’s thoug...

Writing with AI: The Power of the Smarmy First Draft

By Allison K Williams

“Shitty first drafts,” says Anne Lamott, “are how writers end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.”

Alexandra O’Connell calls it the Ugly Duckling Draft. Austin Kleon, The Down Draft (just get it down). In Seven Drafts, I call it The Vomit Draft, but also quote Jenny Elder Moke, “y’all quit calling your first drafts garbage. What you’ve got there is a Grocery Draft. Put everything you bought on the counter and figure out what’s for dinner.”

My ...