Writing What's Difficult: Finding the Balance

On Monday, I wrote about handling gritty issues in "cozy" fiction, that is, fiction that is not generally expected to include graphic violence. Emotionally difficult subjects are not, of course, exclusive to fiction. Nonfiction, including memoirs, travel and nature writing, ethnography, history, and more, often addresses painful and ugly subjects. So does poetry. And drama. Writing is, after all,