Blog
“Small and do-able and significant…”
Dear writing sister, While I was awake in the wee hours of the night last night, I read this passage from Julia Cameron's Walking in this World: The Practical Art of Creativity: "When we shift our inner statement from 'I'd love to' to 'I'm going to,' we shift out of...
Writing Hard Truths: Writing as Witness to Your Younger Self
We all have them: hard truths we swore we would never write about. This is, after all, the nature of silencing: we are conditioned to muzzle truths society shames and blames us for. Ironically, these same subjects are often the ones that urge us to the page in the...
Sonya Huber: “I have great tolerance for my own shitty sentences.”
I love Sonya Huber. She was my first mentor of my first semester of my MFA program back in 2009. She was also my thesis advisor my last semester in 2011. It was Sonya who introduced me to the idea that writing a memoir—book length or essay—begins with a messy...
Spark your writing magic!
Dear writing sisters, There’s magic in the air. Writing magic. The kind of magic that comes from writing in sisterhood. Which is exactly the magic we’ve been stirring up these last two months in the Writing Out Loud Sisterhood Inner Circle. How do we do it? We gather...
Unstick a Stuck Story: Yes, you can enjoy writing trauma!
Dear writing sisters, “It felt almost wrong, really, that writing about incest could be fun. Yet, in order to follow my own rules, I had to be playful. I had to explore new angles on a story I knew by heart, but that was actually far more complex and nuanced than I...
Valuable Writing: The Twenty-Minute Trick
Dear Writing Sisters, “All the valuable writing I’ve done in the last ten years has been done in the first twenty minutes after the first time I’ve wanted to leave the room.” Ron Carlson Sometimes the hardest part of writing memoir can be staying in your seat or, as...
This podcast made my voice shake!
Dear writing sisters, I loved loved loved appearing as a guest on the podcast STFU: We’re Not Done Talking Yet hosted by my dear writing sisters Charla Gabert and Danielle Woermann. We talked women and voice and writing and silencing. And, somewhere in there, I...
Mother Truths: Quotes by Women Writers
Dear writing sisters, I’ve been thinking about the complexity of motherhood—and the mother-daughter relationship—in a patriarchal culture that renders mothers as one-dimensional, self-sacrificing, benevolent women who do not have needs beyond caring for others. Never...
Interview with Anne Panning!
Dear writing sisters, Anne Panning’s memoir Dragonfly Notes: On Distance and Loss begins, “My mother appears regularly to me in the form of a dragonfly, or so I like to think.” From there she draws on decades of memory and experience, from her childhood home in rural...
May your inner twinkle guide you
Dear writing sisters, For a number of years now I've taken to decorating the corner mantel in our family room in place of a tree. I string it with star lights that twinkle, then I add ornaments that conjure snow--a snow owl and a tree made of feathers, white poodles...
What’s your metaphor for silence?
Dear writing sisters, Years ago, when I was in my twenties and just setting out on what would become a quest to recovery my voice from silence, I joined a peer counseling class. The theme of the class was women's empowerment. In this class, we learned how to listen to...
Choose Your Conscious Writing Word for 2019!
Dear writing sisters, Every year at this time I choose a writing word to guide my writing in the coming year. Then I spell out my word with Scrabble tiles and set it above my desk so that every time I look up there it is, my writing word, reminding me of my conscious...
A Memoir Writing Prompt: Develop Your Narrator
Dear writing sisters, One of my quirky gifts is a knack for spotting potential writing prompts, especially when I’m reading a memoir. Prompts jump out at me. And when they do, I flag the page with a Post-It note and jot a craft category in the margin: develop your...
A Writing Prayer ~ Writing Intention
Dear writing sisters, At the start of my Virtual Writing Retreats, I like to hold a space for participants to set their personal writing intention. I also like to set a group writing intention as a way to keep us unified and connected—to really ground us into the...
Writing with an Open Heart: A Mentoring Love Story / Photo Essay
Dear writing sisters, Last week was my birthday—I turned 52 : ). On the day after my birthday I received a gift that will stay with me for the long haul: I got to hug Lydia McGranahan, one of my mentoring clients, in person for the first time after years of connecting...
How do you return to your writing after time away?
Hello writing sisters, It's been a while since I touched base with you! First, I was busy devoting extra writing time to my submission for the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I'll be attending the post-graduate writing conference in August. I've heard so many good...
Choose Your Conscious Writing Word for 2018!
Dear writing sisters, As many of you know, every year at this time I choose a writing word to guide my writing in the coming year. Then I spell out my word with Scrabble tiles and set it above my desk so that every time I look up there it is, my writing word,...
Be a Writer You Admire
Earlier this week I posted the following in Writing Out Loud Sisterhood, a Writing Women’s Lives Facebook group: “This morning on the way to an annual check-up I caught the tail end of an NPR report about children and self-confidence. The report stated that when...