"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
September 29, 2025
The rest of the opening paragraph of this novel lists the other things the narrator tries not to think about: sex, her boyfriend, death, and her mother who died on vacation last winter. She shows … Read More
September 19, 2025
How do you write a successful novel about a traumatic childhood? Let’s raise the bar: how do you write a best-selling book about a person who remembers being raped by her father? Norwegian author Vigdis … Read More
September 10, 2025
This novel is a beach read about people who debate how Martha’s Vineyard compares to Nantucket Island. They actually do have passionate conversations about their beaches. Rich? Why, yes. Happy? Of course not. Readers may be … Read More
August 31, 2025
Let’s just say that you wanted to write a novel that was built around that idea that “the present changes the past.” How would you structure it? Would you tell the story chronologically? Illustrate … Read More
August 11, 2025
How did she do that? Readers often ask this after reading an Ann Beattie story. Just when it seems as though not much is happening, boom! The story explodes. For example, in the … Read More
July 31, 2025
A reader will learn more about the facts of Greg Sarris’s life by reading his Wikipedia page than by reading his memoir. This book tells us little, for … Read More
July 22, 2025
How much should a memoirist reveal? This is the most challenging question for the writers I work with. Too much information heightens vulnerability. Too little results in generic and unconvincing prose. This author … Read More
July 10, 2025
About 700 years ago, Dante wrote a poem that begins this way, “Midway upon the journey of our life / I found myself within a forest dark / For the straightforward pathway had been … Read More
June 27, 2025
Marian Schembari’s memoir about learning she was autistic at age 34 is called a “hybrid memoir” because it combines a personal story with biomedical research. But is it stirring? Do people love this … Read More
June 22, 2025
What makes a memoir great? Honesty, insight, humor, compassion? What about metaphors? Comparing a feeling to something you can see requires a lot of creativity. Look at how Angelo compares “shame” … Read More
June 14, 2025
Short stories can be more than appetizers. But the challenge of creating a world with vivid characters who do something that matters to us in a compressed format is great. The length is a … Read More
May 29, 2025
I remember the Bad Old Days well, when it was thought that the word “I” weakened any writing that contained facts. Yes, we actually believed then that impersonal writing was “objective” because the … Read More
May 25, 2025
Should museums include the work of living artists? Rarely does an institution say, “We are confident this will stand the test of time,” but that’s in fact the judgement of The Museum of Literature Ireland in Dublin … Read More
May 15, 2025
When asked to recommend a classic Irish memoir, a bookseller in Dublin went straight to this book. As it turns out, she wasn’t alone in saying that reading this book is one of “life’s greatest pleasures.” This … Read More
