Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 73

Where I’m From—Writers Answer on Instagram Live

A Q&A with Alyson Shelton

By Andrea A. Firth

Over the past year, Alyson Shelton has interviewed over 50 writers on Instagram Live about their response to the prompt “Where I’m From.” The conversations start with the writer reading their response and from there Alyson and her guest spend a half an hour talking about the prompt, the process, family, relationships and much more. Andrea A. Firth spoke with Alyson about the project. 

How did your Where I’m From Instagram Live project get ...

How Being an Ice Mermaid is a Lot Like Being a Writer

By Heidi Croot

Photojournalist Greta Rybus’s New York Times story, “Cold-Plunging With Maine’s Ice Mermaids,” tells of six women who meet on a cold January day for a frigid plunge in a Maine pond. They axe a rectangular hole in the ice and wearing bathing suits and boots, ease themselves in, smiling as they grasp the thick, broken edge with mittened hands. 

After the blue-lip dip, the “ice mermaids” hightail it to the sauna, “cobbled together from a former fish house and an old stove,” ...

Authors: Can You Answer These Questions—Quickly?

By Sue Fagalde Lick 

What kind of books do you write? What is this book about? 

Sitting at my table at a recent book festival, I heard the same questions over and over. The authors who sold a lot of books were ready with their answers. 

I can’t count the number of times Mike Nettleton [deadlyduomysteries.com] at the next table said he writes “humorous murder mysteries” and then described a book in which a professional wrestler turned private detective runs into Sasquatch in the woods...

Who’s On First?

By Regina Landor

A new magazine recently accepted one of my pieces for publication. It had been a long time since I had any of my work published and my first thought was, Really? That piece? It’s a story I wrote during the pandemic about an argument my husband and I had which resulted in our sleeping in separate bedrooms. Was I really ready to invite my friends and family and possibly multiple strangers into my bedroom at the very same time? I must have been. 

It was only after I receiv...

Tinder for Writers?

Using Reddit to find a writing partner.

By Michael Anthony

Years ago, I was single, alone, and staring at my computer screen. I had a big decision to make: Send the Message or Don’t Send the Message. It was my first attempt at dating online—an unusual concept at the time—and as the minutes of doubt ticked away, I sighed to myself, “Why the hell not?” 

Overall, my foray into online dating worked out quite well (which I won’t go into here). But the thing is, when years later I was loo...

Death Doesn’t Sell…Or Does It?

Publishing’s disconnect between “the market” and actual readers.

Karen Fine (photo: Constance Owens)

E.B. Bartels and Karen Fine met last summer and realized they have a lot in common: both drive bumper-sticker-covered Subarus, both published with nautical-themed imprints––and both faced obstacles getting their death-heavy books into the world.

Karen Fine: When I was querying The Other Family Doctor: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life and Mortality, I ha...

Why I Write

By Diane Forman

One of my favorite prompts, which I give my students near the end of a six or eight-week writing workshop, is a section of Terry Tempest Williams’ beautiful essay entitled “Why I Write.” I love Williams’ words: “I write to discover…to honor beauty…I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams.” My writing group participants disclose similar revelations: they write to remember, to calm themselves, to put into words what they can’t say aloud.

As a lifelong journal...

Are You Too Young to Write a Memoir?

By Jessica Gigot 

When I told my mother about my new book project, a departure from poetry, her first response was, “Aren’t you too young to be writing a memoir?” The question was jarring. I was in my late thirties at the time and had been writing and publishing poetry for several years. Prior to that I had been a researcher, penning scientific articles for journals like The American Journal of Potato Science and The International Journal of Fruit Science. I was, by all accounts, ready to ...

On Memory

By Sonya Spillmann

In the shade of a canopied backyard, ten feet away from the base of the giant oak (from which I often pulled bark, I’m sorry, tree) I hold out my thin young arms in a rigid “T.” An imitation. An imagination. I wear white-piped shorts and a page-boy haircut. I must stay as still as possible. 

I cannot keep my arms up like that now, a woman in her forties, for more than a minute without shaking but then, as a girl of seven, I became the shape of a letter for what felt l...

Writing in My Ninth Decade

By Sarah Barnett

I need a word. The first letter is p. Out-of-focus, it floats above my head. I want to grab it, but it hovers just out of reach like the wine glasses on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet. 

No big deal, right? My friends boast about having senior moments as if they deserve a prize for their failing, flailing memories. But I don’t have time for memory lapses. Midway through an essay I’m stuck trying to remember the name of a flower that starts with p.

Is my writing ...