Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 89

On Writing, Joy, and Spiritual Practice

By Camilla Sanderson

I subscribe to the camp of “writing can be joyful.” Yes, a gentle discipline is required. But because my experience shows me that creativity is inextricably linked to spirituality, and I’m not always in control of what may want to flow through me, I don’t berate myself if I’m not “producing.” Which is counter-cultural I guess. We’re so conditioned to believe that “doing” is more important than “being.” However there is a mystical peace in simply being.

I wonder...

A Review of Scarlett Thomas’ 41-Love

By Kelsey Cleveland

I deflated as if a service ace had whizzed past me when I discovered Scarlett Thomas (Oligarchy) had written a memoir about her return to her childhood love of tennis as a 41-year-old. An essay on the same topic awaited my edits in my drafts folder. Then I rushed to get a copy of 41-Love: On Addictions, Tennis and Refusing to Grow Up to read how the experience of the British novelist compared to mine in the United States.

By the second page of the Prologue, I co...

Using a Newsletter as a Prewriting Exercise and Research Tool

My great grandmother Bertha Hander Polan, my uncle Eddie, and my grandfather. Taken in Baltimore in 1907

By Sarah Einstein

I came out of the worst of the pandemic feeling creatively dull and uninspired, in spite of having a book under contract with WVU Press that I was very excited about. I was really enjoying the research process, but I just wasn’t able to get any words on the page. Starting a Substack newsletter, Writing Family Histories, about my research really turned that around,...

Discovering Your Genre: Prose, Poetry, or In Between

Ann de Forest

How does a writer who works in both poetry and prose, or on the cusp of both, decide which genre best expresses a particular subject? We, Ann de Forest and Amy Beth Sisson, are critique partners for poetry but we both write prose as well. In conversations about our experiences, we posed this question. Here, we explore some differences between the genres and offer experiments and exercises to help us – and other writers – decide.

From Prose to Poetry

Ann : I came to writ...

What Would Happen If You Weren’t So Attached to Your Newsfeed?

By Sweta Srivastava Vikram

Research and several studies will tell you that social media can take a real toll on people’s mental health. With writers, the impact is even more given the low pay, fewer opportunities, loneliness of the profession, feeling misunderstood, needing external validation, and fiery insecurities. Constantly updating our Instagram and Facebook feed to see if anyone has liked it? Tweeting based on hashtag trends on Twitter and feeling disappointed if no one engages...

A Review of Knocked Down: A High-Risk Memoir by Aileen Weintraub

By Jennifer Lang

Last Saturday, I stretched out on my L-shaped sienna red sofa with a cup of Earl Grey and almond milk and read, and read, and read. I read before breakfast, after lunch, before dinner. I read from page 1 until page 293, from beginning to end.

From the first chapter of Aileen Weintraub’s debut memoir Knocked Down, we understand the stakes are high. A city girl from Brooklyn married to a country boy, she is living in his family’s old farmhouse, pregnant and faced wit...

Experiencing Loss Changed How I Write

By Shayna Goodman

Just before the pandemic I experienced two major, simultaneous life ruptures: my partner left me for a mutual friend and my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Lewy Body Dementia. I moved out of our apartment, dropped the classes I was supposed to teach that semester, and several weeks later, left New York when the city went into lockdown. I am permanently changed by these intersecting traumas. Included in these changes are the ways I create and consume art.

I was 2...

How Scene Writing Saved Me (and How It Will Save You)

By Lisa Cooper Ellison

Back in the grunge era, I learned the Show Don’t Tell edict of storytelling. My tweed-sport-coat wearing professor dedicated an entire semester to sensory details, dialogue, and precise actions. Every workshop ended with the same question. How can you make this come so alive I feel like I’m there?

As someone who woke from dreams with complete, albeit bizarre, narrative arcs, and recalled memories like movies, my flannel-loving heart was hooked. I vowed to become ...

Making it Light—On Pottery and Writing

By Melissa Uchiyama

At my last pottery session, Sakai Sensei picked up my mug. Eyebrows raised, she exclaimed “Karuii.” So very light. I took so much clay out from the inside and still, it didn’t crack. It’s drying. Next time, I’ll glaze, then in a week, it will come back to me, out of the fire.

It’s like that with writing: it’s deep excavation that mostly happens inside. Scraped clay piles up like eraser shreds. “Slowly, slowly,” the potter next to me warns. Or encourages. “Yukkuri.”...

Co-Writing Works

By Morgan Baker

When I went to the florist to get some holiday cheer for my house—white hydrangeas and some greenery—I was on the clock.  I had a standing appointment at 12:30 I couldn’t miss. Several times a week, I log on to Zoom in Boston and write with friends I’ve made: from Dubai and Amsterdam, British Columbia and Seattle.

I’ve always been envious of those writers who belong to supportive writers’ groups or write in coffee shops with earbuds in, listening to their music while pe...