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By April Dávila When I started writing my second novel, I decided to open the story with my main character being born in a storm. I imagined the trees thrashing in the wind and raindrops exploding in the mud. It was all wonderfully dramatic. After writing the rest of the draft, I eventually came back […]
by Danya Kaufmann I spent a couple weeks in Dharamshala one summer, up in the lush green mountains of Northern India. The village was enveloped by a magical mist, and I was in heaven. Well, a subset of heaven, geared toward vegetarian, yoga-loving, strapped-for-cash twenty-five-year-olds like me. I took every course I
Like writing, mountaineering requires imagination, enthusiasm, creativity, and courage. By Kate Levin At the end of Scott Ellsworth’s The World Beneath Their Feet, Everest has finally been summitted after decades of failed attempts. I close the book. Well that was satisfying. My guilty reading pleasure: nonfiction narr
The object is never the subject. The object is the lens. By Marvin Garbeh Davis, Sr. I did not set out to write a memoir. I set out to write about my stomach. Specifically, the complicated lifelong relationship I have with the most demanding dependent I have ever had — the organ that wakes up […]
By Sarah Curtis In the spring of last year, I mailed my father a copy of my manuscript before my publisher sent it to press. Since it was about him, I thought he deserved the final pass. My mother called after they’d received the package. “Your dad got a little weepy at something you wrote,” […]
“Sometimes writing is how we survive an experience.” ~ Diane Zinna To mark National Grief Awareness Month, Brevity Blog editor Dinty W. Moore interviews Diane Zinna on her newly released Letting Grief Speak: Writing Portals for Life After Loss. Zinna’s meditative guidebook, based on the Grief Writing Sundays that she h
An essay can have benefits beyond those that come from publication By Elizabeth Roper Marcus Shortly after taking up writing in my late 40s, I finished a memoir piece I was proud of and submitted it to Creative Nonfiction’s 2011 essay contest on animals. Thus began a very long road that took me to a […]
By Eileen Vorbach Collins Writing often reflects life. While it can be beautiful, funny, and full of hope, so can it be fraught with pain, remorse, and trauma. Do we need to warn readers that something unpleasant might happen on the page? Shouldn’t they expect it by now? I do. At least I did, until […]
By Allison K Williams Nothing like shouting toward your fellow writers in a giant concrete convention center, amirite? While I enjoy AWP, its sheer size is overwhelming. With any large writing conference, professional and creative gains are often tied to financial privilege and extroversion. Even smaller events mean ai
By Elissa Jacobs My memoir was written at sloth-speed. More than a decade from the first words on the page to a full first draft; more than five years beginning from when I “got serious” about writing. I wasn’t just writing; I had a full-time job and a young child. And as a primatologist, I’d […]
By Cindy Schweich Handler Soon after my first book was published, I led a Zoom discussion for remote readers. It wasn’t my first event publicizing A German Jew’s Triumph, but it was the first—and only—time that an attendee set her screen on “mirror my video” so she could do her hair and makeup during the […]
And It Is the Memoirist’s Best Friend By Dinty W. Moore The phrase about curiosity killing the cat goes back to Shakespeare, as do so many enduring phrases, but to be honest it rings false. I suppose excess curiosity could be problematic if a tabby were, for instance, wondering what happens inside of an active […]
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