https://brevity.wordpress.com/feed/
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Examining Authenticity in MemoirBy Amy Mackin Authenticity has been at the forefront of my mind over the last year, and I’m clearly not alone. According to...
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A Village Approach To Removing RoadblocksBy Ann Kathryn Kelly I thought I had written a gripping memoir. (Don’t we all?) My story is about the mysterious and ongoing...
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What You Don’t Know About Publishing (Could Ruin Your Book)By Peter Mountford The publishing business is vast and byzantine. What does it mean that your agent is “taking your book to...
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What I Learned About Essay Writing by Reading for a Literary MagazineBy Jillian Barnet After Under the Sun published one of my essays, the editors, Martha Highers and Nomi Isenberg, invited me to...
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Micro Memoir Recipe BoxBy Heather Sellers Micro memoirs are true stories told in tight packages—from a deft paragraph to a page or two. They are...
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Here’s the ThingBy Gary Reddin You write the thing. Then you rewrite the thing. Then again and again until it’s done. That last part is key....
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God Meets With His EditorBy Ali Solomon GOD: Did you get the new tablets I sent you? EDITOR: I did. All seventy-five of...
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What’s in a Name?—The Risks of Writing About FamilyBy Laurie Hertzel When the editor of a literary journal asked me to contribute to his final issue a few years ago, I had only one...
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Year of Plenty: A Family’s Season of GriefIn his latest memoir, Year of Plenty: A Family’s Season of Grief , B.J. Hollars chronicles a year that brought the cancer...
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An Unlikely WriterBy Deborah Ann Lucas We moved every year when I was young, making me the perpetual new kid. One day during the summer after fifth...
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Writing Memoir—It’s a “We” ProgramBy Elizabeth Jannuzzi The other day I was trying to be a good student—something I never was when I was in school—and I was...
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I Gave Up Creative Writing for a DecadeIt was the best thing I could ever have done By Anna Rollins The summer after graduating with my Master’s in English, I made...
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Chasing Narrative Arc—One Writer’s Path to TotalityBy Andrea A. Firth As we drive to the airport to catch an early flight, I see a sliver of moon, the waning crescent, in the morning...
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Stitch by Stitch and Word by WordBy Carolyn Roy-Bornstein When my foster daughter recently got a job as an assistant veterinary technician at a local animal...
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The Joys of Writing to WordcountBy Olga Mecking “On the test, you will have to write an essay of around 200 words,” my English teacher said. I...
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The One Topic I’ve Struggled to Write Aboutby Rachel Kramer Bussel Over the past 35 years, I’ve written about everything from my sex life, hoarding, and binge eating, to...
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Writing as Real LifeBy Olga Katsovskiy I avoid disclosing anything about my life to my students, nor do I ask them to share any facts about their...
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My Poetry Background Helped Save My Memoir—But Not Before It Nearly Did It InBy Ona Gritz “Things take the time they take,” Mary Oliver says in a poem kindly titled, “Don’t Worry.” My memoir took ten years to...
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Truth Is the Arrow: Steve Almond on Comedy, Tragedy, and ForgivenessIn his newly-released craft book, Truth Is The Arrow, Mercy Is The Bow , subtitled “A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories,”...
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Writing a Book Proposal: The Panic is RealBy Jocelyn Jane Cox The initial draft of my memoir Motion Dazzle went swimmingly. I got deep into a flow state with ethereal...
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The Wisdom of ‘We‘re Going on a Bear Hunt’By Cathy Alter I recently broke my ankle, and even though surgeons have rebuilt the joint, crutching around with grace, sleeping on...
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Snot-Bubble-Cry Dance Parties That Boost Your CreativityBy Lisa Cooper Ellison When I picked up my badge at the AWP registration desk, I’d had so many plans: Meetups with colleagues and...
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Navigating the Timelines of BrutalitiesBrooke Knisley and Margo Steines talk tense, text and weaving essays into memoir. Margo Steines In her 2023 memoir...
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Strength in Numbers: How Three Out of Six Writing Group Pals Published in 2023by Laura Beretsky, Bev Boisseau Stohl, and Jean Duffy The odds of first authors getting published are not encouraging—some say we...
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Stop Interrupting! Better Ways to Use Reflection in Your MemoirBy Allison K Williams Recently, I edited a well-written manuscript with a compelling childhood story. But there was one major...
