This Saturday I’m teaching a creative nonfiction workshop in which we’ll make our readers shiver. Suspense has got to be the biggest challenge to my daily work as a memoirist, but writing suspenseful prose has also […]
In high school I prided myself on knowing the best gossip, and later I became a journalist. The question I had to ask myself, when the time came to finally write a memoir, was how much to divulge.
I watched as Cheryl went from person to person like a hummingbird gathering nectar, engaging people as though she were truly interested in them– and I’m sure she was. She told me that she asked so many questions of her mother’s friends and house guests when she was young that her mother gave her a limit of how many questions she could ask each person. What were the types of questions she asked? “Who do you love? Why do you love them?” All questions of the interior life. Imagine a five year-old engaging you in such a conversation.
My fiancé arrives home from a twelve hour shift. He left in the pre-dawn darkness, and has arrived after winter’s dusk.
“Who died?” I ask when I greet him at the door, motioning to the black band across his badge. A thin blue line on the band serves as a marker for his profession.
“The deputy in Leon Country,” he says, leaving his boots by the door. “You didn’t hear?”
“No,” I say. “What happened?”
He tells me about the fire and the ambushed deputies, and I’m reminded of the nickname firefighters have given cops–blue canaries.
Work it, Girl! All through September, the Sirens will be singing songs of labor, whether it be childbirth labor, laboring toward artistic goals, or laboring to be the best selves we can […]
by Wendy Goddard As roommates go, Mark the Stonemason possessed many qualities to recommend him, none more crucial than his being the recipient of my friend Charlotte’s love. Mark could size up […]
By Marcia Aldrich The day my father died, my husband and I drove in the bright, tilted light of autumn, past farms, pastures, and ponds, finally arriving at the orchard. We parked the […]
by Marcia Aldrich Nothing is simple. Nothing is pure. Sorrow folds inside the wings of happiness. And, as Louise Bogan says, “At midnight tears run into your ears.” ••• Late last April, […]
Originally posted on The Border Collie Inquisitor:
Casey loved any kind of play Some readers of my memoir, For the Love of a Dog, say the end dissatisfies them. If I loved…
About a year ago I got an email from Wag’s Revue breaking the news that I didn’t win their contest. I did what I always do when I get rejected: I forwarded the email […]
