I’ve warned you before—I’m obsessed with gardening. Especially this year, when after thirty-six years in Alaska, I moved to the Oregon Coast, where people informed me that everything would grow bigger and faster than I ever expected. It does. For the connections with writing, I blame Natalie Goldberg, whose wisdom I shared most recently when talking …
Deb Vanasse | Dirty Secrets of Revision and Editing Read More »
I’ll admit that I never really nailed all of the grammar rules until I became a high school English teacher. I firmly believe that the best way to learn something deeply is to teach it to someone else. Good teachers spend time considering their subject from all angles, pulling it apart, and putting it back …
Thomas Merton with the Dalai Lama, 1968 “If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing …
Kathleen Tarr: Pursuing the Spiritual in Writing Read More »
The internet is down at my house. Or close to it. I’m getting connection intermittently and slowly. My frustration and sense of isolation reminds me how dependent I am on the internet for work and for companionship. Perhaps this is the plight of many writers; working alone at our desks to create a world with …
Image from moviewriternyu.wordpress.com You love to write. Why, then, can it be so hard to get started—or to finish a project that you began with enthusiasm? An abundance of metaphors prove that this affliction is nearly universal among writers. Your muse needs to visit. Your creative well needs filling. Your batteries need recharging. Whenever …
Summer in Alaska is a full-steam ahead, get-it-all-done, hangout/work-outside kind of time. If you’re anything like me, you end up sliding in September exhausted and maybe a little disoriented. Did you write anything this summer? Did you manage to make the time to devote to your novel or poetry or creative nonfiction essays? Maybe not. …
In the first half of the 1800s hand-woven Navajo blankets were typically coarsely woven and very plain. They featured the natural color of sheep wool with perhaps a contrasting stripe or two at the edges. During the last half of the 1800s Navajo weavings (increasingly smaller carpets rather than blankets) were frequently high quality, …
When I first started writing a novel, I was living year round in Petersburg, AK. I was a scientist who had read a lot of books and had always, secretly wanted to write one. I did not think of myself as a writer, but had a lot of time on my hands in the winter …
Rachel Weaver: Am I Ever Going to Finish Writing This Book? Read More »
Artwork by Sandra Kleven One may feel an inclination to adore famous poets. To be impressed beyond ease of expression. To see the greatest of poets as nearly holy, and the greatest poems as personal touchstones. “You do not have to be good…” Mary Oliver “This is the way the world ends…” T. S. …
Bryan Fierro On Saturday, Feb. 21, Bryan Fierro will be teaching a 49 Writers workshop on developing original dialogue. Here’s what you can expect: This class is designed to explore the story and character possibilities unlocked by timely and original dialogue. What does that mean? We know that dialogue functions to further story, conflict, and …
Bryan Fierro: What Cha Talk’n ‘Bout Willis?: Developing Original Dialogue Read More »
