Blog
Trust Your Voice
Learning to trust your own voice, and even to hear it, is just as important as learning the technical skills of writing. Maybe even more important. A piece of writing can be well crafted and even eloquent and still ring hollow. Theo Pauline Nestor When I am not...
My Writing Process
What is writing if not a process, and what is a process if not one of life’s messier gifts that grows us from who we are now into who we are becoming? The more I write and the more I mentor women writers and teach writing to college students, the deeper I appreciate...
What’s Your Writing Word? Become the Writer You Want to Be in 2014
Some years ago I ditched New Year’s resolutions, which felt more like giving up something for Lent—i.e., depriving myself of something I wanted—than evolving myself into the person I wanted to become. In place of making a resolution, I began choosing a “word of the...
Writing Grace: Count Your Writing Blessings
When I was growing up in a largish Catholic family in the 1970s my mother led us in grace every night at the dinner table. We would press our hands together like a steeple, fingertips to our noses, bow our heads, close our eyes, and recite “Bless us O Lord, and these...
Author Interview: Memoirist Kate Hopper on Motherhood and Writing
Today I have the pleasure of e-interviewing my mentor and writing friend Kate Hopper whose memoir Ready for Air: A Journey through Premature Motherhood was recently published by University of Minnesota Press. Ready for Air is an urgent memoir that plumbs the depths of...
On Shameless Self-Promotion: Keep Hitting the Send Button
As girls we learn not to stand out, not to be brave, not to be bold, not to break the rules. We learn that it is shameful to “brag,” so without realizing it, we downplay our accomplishments. We carry this internalized conditioning into every area of our adult lives,...
Writing Women’s Lives at WordWorks! Tomorrow Evening
Just a quick reminder to locals that I'll be presenting a Writing Women's Lives talk/workshop tomorrow evening, Wed., Aug. 28, from 6:30-9:00pm as part of the Night Writers fundraising series at WordWorks! in Lynchburg. All proceeds benefit children's programming at...
Staceyann Chin Takes Center Page: A Review of The Other Side of Paradise
When people ask me what I do as a writing coach, I tell them that I show women writers who are done being silent how to free their authentic voice so they can take “center page” in their writing and in their life. I’ll admit I love a good pun, and while my puns...
On Patience: Writing, Radiation, and Roses
This past March, while at AWP’s annual writing conference, I received confirmation that the tumor removed from my left breast two weeks prior was in fact cancerous. The cells were early stage and noninvasive, but the surgery had not yielded a clean margin. A month ago...
Obsession Notebook II: How to Excavate Your Truth
Did you fill your obsession notebook in a week? Ten days? Two weeks? By what day were you obsessed with your writing, your thoughts, your mind? Me, I was hooked on day one. It’s been a few years since I’ve kept a compulsive diary, and my obsession notebook...
Obsession Notebook I: How to Expand Your Writing Time
A common regret I hear from women writers is that they don’t have time to write. Not writing, or not writing enough to satisfy their writing need, leaves them feeling empty and hollow, without a center. I nod when I hear these regrets. If I miss my writing time for as...
Writing Women’s Lives in Lynchburg
Calling all local women writers! You’re invited to the premiere Writing Women’s Lives™ Lynchburg open studio on Thursday, February 21, 2013, from 7:00 – 9:00pm. Together we’ll write our hearts out and raise our voices. And I’ll be sharing details for my upcoming...
How Graphic Memoir Can Demystify Structure
I am currently working on a short memoir essay titled “Blue Lollipop” about my first trip to a hair salon at age six, and the ensuing haircut, which was my mom’s idea, not mine. But the essay’s deeper truth charts the arc of a self—the “emotional” arc—by juxtaposing...
Why Set a Writing Intention?
I sometimes wonder how many women writers aren’t writing because the inner critic—that blatherer Virginia Woolf dubbed the Angel in the House—has been chattering on autopilot for so long its judgments drown out the writer and her voice. One insidious problem with the...
Next Big Thing
I’ve been tagged by Katherine Barrett, Literary Mama columnist and book review editor, in a blog chain called The Next Big Thing. Here’s the deal: I answer a set of interview questions about my next big writing project, then I tag five writers who in turn blog...
Structure as Narrative Tapestry: How to Make the Shape of Your Memoir Visible
I have recently returned home from the 26th annual Iowa Summer Writing Festival, where I participated in Hope Edelman’s memoir writing workshop with nine other women memoirists. Hope, author of The Possibility of Everything, Mother of My Mother, Motherless Mothers,...
Writing Past Silence with Virginia Woolf
“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?” Muriel Rukeyser once asked then said, “The world would split open.” My world split open last Thursday night when I taught the first Writing Women’s Lives™ class at Riverviews Artspace in Lynchburg,...
Book Party with Kate Hopper!
My friend and writing mentor Kate Hopper has recently published a book on writing called Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers. Kate is an extraordinary teacher, writer, and mentor for mama-writers. I am delighted to invite you to a book party with Kate next...