Write Those Essays: On Letting Go of Limiting Yourself

By Susan Barr-Toman

Four years ago, I attended an author event for Martha Cooley’s Guesswork: A Reckoning with Loss. At the time I was stuck. I was a novelist, who couldn’t make stuff up anymore. Years before I’d studied fiction in grad school and had workshopped with Cooley. Back then, I was adamant about being a fiction writer, who did not rely on autobiographical material to create, having no interest in writing about my life.

At the reading, Cooley spoke how she’d lost eight friend...