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WRITING THROUGH THIS PANDEMIC
How goes your work? Writing through the pandemic When life is heavier than usual, Requires more planning, more commitment. You might be challenged by too much solitude Or perhaps not enough. Either way, I see you adapt, And it inspires me. You remake...
Emulating Emily Rapp
Steal Like an Artist. That was the title of Austin Kleon's first book. It's a reference to Pablo Picasso's famous advice, "Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal." During the summer reading course, when we studied memoirs by Black authors, we chucked the idea of...
Return to Writing
Tell me if this has ever happened to you. You create an intention to commit to daily writing practice or that bigger project that you swore would be your priority. You take off like a jack rabbit for a few weeks or even a few months, but then you start to drift...
Protect Your Mind
There is revolution in the streets And a madman in the White House. A pandemic/a plague And the planet slowly burns. You cannot close your eyes to any of it. And yet, you must turn away. For an hour or two. Preferably in the morning, Though dusk is good too. You must...
Come on, Little Brain
Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to speak with some of you about your writing. Here are a few comments I've heard on repeat: I keep coming back to this idea.I am haunted by this story. I hear this voice in my head, and it won't...
Transformation of Memoir, Part III
This is the third and last post in this series about memoir. I would love to know if it has sparked any ideas for your own work and/or if the questions I’ve posed were useful. Feel free to hit reply, and let me know. As I shared a few weeks ago, I started...
The Transformation of Memoir, Part II
Last week, I wrote about my initial venture into writing memoir and how I was motivated in part by self-pity and feeling isolated. If you missed it, I posed some questions regarding your own writing projects that you may find useful. The link...
The Transformation of Memoir, Part I
I’ve been thinking a lot about the process of writing memoir and how it transforms you. Over the next few weeks, I want to a share few ways that writing my memoir has changed me, with the hope that you might find something of value for your own work. SOME...
Why read black authors
Why read memoirs by Black authors? I received this question from a fellow writer a few days ago. My first reaction was, are you kidding? Then I remembered the wisdom of a dear writing friend: Check yourself, she said. She may not know. The question came from a...
Close Reading as Spiritual Practice
You’ve probably seen and/or downloaded some of the anti-racist reading lists circulating on the Internet. White Fragility and How to Be an Anti-Racist are a few books that are on my nightstand now. If for some reason you haven’t laid eyes on any of these lists and...