Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 78

Get Thee to a Writers’ Conference… and S T R E T C H

By Michèle Dawson Haber

Three weeks away from the terrifying milestone of putting my draft memoir in the hands of a developmental editor, I started to question the wisdom of registering for Hippocamp, the annual conference for creative nonfiction writers sponsored by Hippocampus magazine. I was in the final stretch of getting the manuscript in as good a shape as possible and attending the conference would mean five days off task at a time when I could least afford to get sidetracked. 

B...

Advice on Writing Through a Book’s Mushy Middle

By Judy Bolton-Fasman

A eulogy I wrote for my father expanded into journal entries and eventually my book, ASYLUM: A Memoir of Family Secrets. I long dreamt that those loose collection of journal entries might become a book, but for many years they were arc-less and therefore not coalescing. There was no discernible beginning, middle, and end. But those entries, the impetus to start a writing project — I wouldn’t dare call it a book at the time — formed my literary North Star. 

As Emily...

To Tell or Not to Tell: The Conundrum of the Nonfiction Writer

By Holly Hagman

TW/CW: Mention of sexual assault

While I was in the process of earning my MFA, constantly drafting but never sending out any pieces, a friend of mine announced their first acceptance to a literary journal. While celebrating over dinner and white wine, they told us the essay was about their mother’s alcoholism. I asked them if they had told their mother about the piece – its existence, acceptance, and pending publication. 

“Hell no,” they told me, “And I don’t plan to....

Everybody Hates Prologues

Except writers. Writers love prologues.

By Allison K Williams

I’ve heard from agent after agent: Don’t send the prologue. When you query, start with Chapter One. Memoirs, novels, narrative nonfiction–skip the intro and get us into the story you’re telling. Yet, plenty of great books have prologues. So why can’t we?

In a published book, the first pages have gone through a much longer process with writer, agent and editor, to make sure they suitably set up the story or the subject. In...

How to Write a Personal Essay With Facts

By Dian Parker

To write an essay, an engaging, attention-holding essay, is to write with focus coupled with the ability to meander, consider other terrain, remember other times, appreciate small details, follow your intuition and curiosity ‒ in other words, be creative.

Women can have babies and therefore are usually good caretakers of other people, along with an uncanny ability to multitask. Men like my husband tend to be more singularly focused and are less adept at doing two things a...

Creative Nonfiction: Sensory Self-Revelation

By Mary Ann McSweeny

Recently I came across this description for creative nonfiction: “sensual journalism.” It was one of those double-take moments. I was good with the “sensual” part of the phrase—as in the use of sensory details to create evocative scenes. The heady, cinnamon scent of a robust bed of petunias. The first sip of strong Ceylon tea just poured from the gently steaming round brown teapot. The blood on your iPhone after a dog lunges, breaks its chain, and hurtles fifty yards t...

Ten Steps to Kicking Publication Envy

By Caroline Stowell

After years of “maybe someday,” you’ve finally started submitting your essays.  You’ve even had some small successes and can actually say you are published.  (Pause to enjoy that.)

Except, while you’ve continued writing and revising and submitting, you haven’t heard from an editor in some time.  Or, when you do, it’s to say, “We’re going to pass on this one.”  You can’t decide which is worse – the rejection or the nonresponse.  No reply at all allows the fantasy to c...

Befriend Your Inner Critic

By Deborah Sosin

You might be familiar with your Inner Critic—the nasty voice that says you’re not good enough. Or talented enough. Or compares yourself to others. Or expects nothing but perfection. 

For writers, the voice might sound like this: I’m stuck. Again. Obviously I’m undisciplined, untalented, unmotivated, stupid, delusional about my prospects. I suck. Others are better than I am. I might as well give up. What’s the point of trying? Blahblahblah. 

No wonder our instinct is ...

How to Make a Strawberry Cheesecake Pie in Three Days (While Writing a Book Review at the Same Time)

By Victoria Lynn Smith

Friday

Decide to make strawberry cheesecake pie. Announce this to your husband. Dig out the recipe and read the list of ingredients. You need strawberries. After he leaves for work, go paddle boarding. Walk the dogs. Finish reading the nonfiction book you’re reviewing. Start a rough draft of the review. Take a nap. Buy strawberries. Finish the rough draft.

Your husband returns home and asks about the pie, tell him, “Tomorrow.”

Saturday

Announce you’re mak...

My Writing Garret

By Nancy L. Agneberg

I write in a garret.

Do you imagine, when you read those words, someone perched on a window seat in the uppermost floor of a dignified English manor? Is a refined-looking young woman gazing dreamily out at a meadow abundant with summer wildflowers? Perhaps she holds a small leather-bound journal and an exquisite fountain pen. Soon a maid will bring her a cup of tea and a biscuit and ask, “Is there anything else you need, miss?”

What a lovely picture.  Aristocrati...