Personal Essay


What Happens When You Write 20 Minutes a Day? 22

ON A WHIM, and in a desperate attempt to revive my regular writing practice, I joined a 28-day, 20-minute per day writing challenge starting January 2nd and running through the end of the month. The challenge is sponsored and organized by Story Circle Network, an organization for women writers, which […]


Transforming Everyday Events into Memoir Moments 1

AT ITS CORE, writing is about finding meaning in the mundane. That’s why some of the most satisfying and universal personal essays and stories spring out of completely ordinary events. You don’t have to have climbed Mount Everest or overcome a deadly disease to have something interesting to write about. […]


My Takeaways from the San Miguel Writers’ Conference 8

“[The plot] of personal essay, its drama, its suspense, consists in watching how far the essayist can drop past his or her psychic defenses toward deeper levels of honesty.” – Phillip Lopate LAST WEEK, I had the privilege of attending the twelfth annual San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference. I confess, […]