Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 99

Two Humorists Walk Into a Blog

By Sarah Garfinkel & Julie Vick

Two humor writers walk into a bar.

The first one says, “Ouch!”

The second one says, “No, go with ‘Yikes!’ because hard sounds like K are funnier.”

Julie Vick and Sarah Garfinkel are a lot funnier than that. For the launch of Julie’s new book, Babies Don’t Make Small Talk (So Why Should I?): An Introvert’s Guide to Surviving Parenthood, Julie and Sarah (assistant editor for The Rumpus’ Funny Women column) talked about blending genres, building an on...

Dear Book, Dear Writer

By Julie Lambert

Dear Book,

I’ve thought about you for so long. I’m a little scared of you. What will happen when I release you? What story do you want to tell? Am I seeing you clearly? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this correctly, in the way that I want you to be created. I’m stuck right now. I don’t know what you want me to do. Where you want me to go? I think I know the way, but I’m open and listening. Can you whisper to me? I promise I’ll do my best to let you lead the way...

Yes Writers, You Can Break Form

By Mary Ann McSweeny

It was one of those writing workshops after which you go home asking yourself why in Heaven’s name you ever thought you could write.

My submission to the workshop was a much-revised essay that a highly respected author had told me needed just a few tweaks to be publishable. The tweaks were made, and I was open to any final polishing suggestions that my fellow writers might propose.

The leader of the workshop said to me, “What’s it about?”

“It’s about compassi...

Community vs. Solitude for Writers

By Lisa K. Buchanan

Workshops, writing groups, classes, and conferences can all be lifelines for writers.  It is only as a grateful beneficiary of such bounty that I’ve also come to know when it’s important to work alone.

In an online writing group awhile back, I received the happy news that a short piece of mine was chosen as a finalist in a competition. Savoring the treat, I kept it to myself, grinning stupidly. Meanwhile, a fellow writer in the group announced her own finalist w...

Reading for the First Time After a Drought

By Holly Hagman

The heat of summer still sizzles on the pavement outside when Mom asks me to pick up the sandwiches she’s ordered for lunch. Having slept in, I am still in my pajamas, braless, shorts and flip-flops, clutching my coffee mug in my fist. Despite the warmth outside, I throw the nearest hoodie on top of my sleep-wrinkled clothes and drive to the sub shop. The cool wind from the air conditioning hits my face, and I finally breathe. I walk over to the refrigerated cooler to grab...

On Writing Retreats

By Adelle Purdham

The first time I organized a writer’s retreat I did it because, as a mother to three young kids, I wanted the time and space to write. A word to the wise: if you want time and space to write, don’t organize a writing retreat and facilitate it yourself.

Renting a space meant I had to do all the grunt work. I was preparing lunches and bringing in yoga instructors and providing feedback on writers’ work. With a clump of memoir writers, I was faced with participants in t...

Revision and the Multi-Faceted Self

By Amy Beth Sisson

My sister recently sent me a photograph of a piece of paper that had hung on my parents’ bulletin board for decades. It was a poem I had written at age nine, and my current, much older self could not resist revising the words of my child self. Common advice to writers is to let a manuscript sit in between writing and revision, but my example is extreme—most don’t contemplate a fifty-year timespan. This experience made me question the relationship between writing, re...

Review of Abby Hagler’s There Was Nothing Left But Gold

By Hannah White

I was a quiet girl. I grew up in an all-girl home. In the spaces between my mother’s failed boyfriends and marriages, it was just my mother, my sister, and me, together in a home too large for just us. My mother loved silence, especially in the morning, when our voices carried easily through the emptiness of the house. Excitement was greeted with hushes, with demands to walk lightly. I made myself like a little ghost and she loved me for it.

But I must admit: I love...

Fiction? No. Memoir!

By Brian Watson

In 1994, I was in love for the first time. I glowed with an ecstatic radiance, visible from space. Newfound amorous happiness flipped a writing switch in me. Every night I sat down at my Macintosh Plus, with the massive forty-five-megabyte hard drive atop my desk, and I wrote. Disparate memories of my youth flowed together in a story that inexorably concluded in that ne plus ultra of human endeavors: true love!

But it wasn’t a memoir.

I was certain of one thing: it w...

Florilegia: Gathering from Your Literary Garden

By Signe Myers Hovem

As a writer I face the challenge of how to stay above cliché and contriteness; how to remain relevant and original. How to be authentic. And time after time, I find the unexplored parts of myself stimulated by the works of others, my feelings of unoriginality dispelled when I pick up a book, or look at art, or listen to music.

The role of the reader need not be limited to just consumer or reviewer. Reading is an opportunity to let the content lead you in your own c...