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. […]
“[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, […]
Since October is Domestic Awareness Month, I want to help bring awareness to this issue while offering ways to write about how violence affects each of us personally. It’s not a subject we like to think about. And when it happens publicly, as recent viral videos have shown, those of us […]
A confused student recently asked me about the difference between legacy writing and memoir. “Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?” she wanted to know. “Aren’t they both just writing about life?” “Well, yes and no,” I said. Not the clearcut answer she probably wanted. Yes, they are both forms […]
When my mother left behind a lifetime of letters and journals, she thought it likely that no one would read or care about what she had written. I know because she wrote as much. But she was wrong: I cared, and have read most of what she left behind. Her […]
