Tag: featured
Excerpt of THE SMALLEST OBJECTIVE
The subject of memory is foremost in The Smallest Objective, a memoir of loss and retrieval set during the years when the author’s mother is afflicted with dementia. For World Alzheimer’s Month—September—Sharon Kirsch offers this abridged excerpt from her memoir. In the section below, the author becomes mesmerized by her aunt’s wedding—a subject that remained […]
What Makes Writing Exciting?
Having spent more time at home over the last few month than, well, ever, I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on what keeps writing exciting for me, and what I learned along the journey. My head has always been filled with stories and I started writing them down as a kid. Something would […]
EXCERPT OF AN AMBIGUOUS GRIEF
Dominique Hunter experienced one of the greatest tragedies most mothers can imagine: the death of a child. Her son Dylan died as a young man, having suffered for many years with debilitating anxiety, OCD, and ADD. In An Ambiguous Grief, she reckons with her loss by engaging in conversation with Dylan and employing the most flexible tool in […]
Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter
Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter is a multigenerational memoir co-written by acclaimed Vietnamese-American novelist, lawyer and professor Lan Cao and her daughter Harlan Margaret Van Cao. After more than forty years in the United States, Lan still feels tentative about her place in her adoptive country, one which she came […]
Even Your Memoir Is Not All About You By Michele Weldon
Refrain from the use of “I.” That writing advice may seem hypocritical coming from the author of two memoirs and a new book of personal essays, but even in the most intimate episodes of baring your soul in your writing, readers do not need the constant reminder that it is you writing about yourself. They […]
The First Rung On The Author Ladder By Penny Batchelor
At a women’s writing conference I went to in 2019 the most memorable advice that stuck with me is that getting published doesn’t mean you’ve reached the top of the ladder – you’re only on the first rung. For a writer who had only just received the holy grail of publishing deal at first this […]
Pen Pals – Five Ways Authors Can Show the Love
Publishing is a highly competitive industry, with more than 60,000 books expected to be published this fall season alone. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when your book is on the verge of a breakthrough but your efforts to promote it are threatening to break you as well. Whether traditionally or self-published, we’ve all been there, […]
Tips On Writing Historical Fiction
I’ve been teaching creative writing for years, but continue to learn things I didn’t know about writing both from my students’ work and from my own writing experiences. This year saw the publication of my first novel, The Strange Adventures of H; it was also my first attempt at historical fiction and once again I […]
Personal Growth Happens When You’re Not Expecting It
It was a cool November morning as I sat quietly in my wingback chair, sipping my hot tea and praying for guidance and grace. My heart was breaking as I thought of my friend Isse, a mother of three children in her early forties, and her shocking news: stage IV colon cancer diagnosis. My eyes […]
Historical Fiction and Accuracy
I cannot remember a time in my life that I was not in love with history. From sitting at my aunts’feet as a young child and listening to their stories, to enjoying learning new things about history in my classes in school. I can remember in a literature class learning about corduroy roads in the […]
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