With the Spring 2010 issue of "Creative Nonfiction," this literary journal became a magazine. Lee Gutkind started the journal in 1993 when there were few creative nonfiction journals around. And now, as a magazine, it will be expanding to include more than essays. There will be articles on craft, literary developments, profiles, and more. So …
Tag: resources
All Nature Sings – A Memoir
All Nature Sings: A Spiritual Journey of Place is a beautifully illustrated new memoir by a friend of mine--Carol J. Rottman. If you like nature and a warm, genuine voice, you will like what Carol describes as a "travel journal--not to exotic parts of the globe or to scenes of known beauty," but just to …
Writers: Carry a Notebook
Writing Tip: Always carry a notebook. My first writing teacher, Carol LaChapelle at the Newberry Library in Chicago, told us to carry a 3x5 inch notebook with us at all times. My notes from her class (6/12/00) read: "Get a tiny notebook to carry in your purse with pen that fits on." Clearly, I was …
Dynamite Help with Writing Memoir
Writing Tip: Read a "how to" book. The best book on writing memoir--I've read many--is Tristine Rainer's Your Life as Story: Discovering the 'New Autobiography' and Writing Memoir as Literature. I didn't discover this book until my second year of writing. Maybe that was okay because I had to do a lot of writing to …
When is a Bird Not a Bird?
Writing tip: Get motivated. Ready? Read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. This was the second book I read on my way to becoming a writer, and I loved it. It has to do with getting your words on the page. And Lamott writes her “instructions” with humor. You can't …
“Free Write” into the Good Stuff
Writing Tip: For starters, read! If you’re new to writing, read inspirational books on writing to give yourself a jump start. I began with Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. I learned to do a “free write.” Without looking, aim the point of your pen on a newspaper. Take the word it falls on and, …
Yippee!
Got my final draft of Caring Lessons in to my publisher this afternoon! It will soon be on its way to layout. Now I can diddle some more setting up this site. Notice that I changed my TAG CLOUD to CATEGORIES with the number of entries after them. Nifty! A slow, big learning curve. I've …
Go Back to School – Again and Again
Writing Tip: Take writing classes. Classes can be taken in person or online. So no excuses--just need to carve out the time. I've learned a ton about writing that charting in a patient's chart or writing nursing curriculum never taught me. I've benefited by having teachers and many peers give me feedback on what works …
Subscribe to More Journals?
Writing tip: Subscribe to writing journals. I promised in an early post that I'd describe my "writing process," how I "crawled step by step from teaching nursing to writing memoir." Here goes. As a nurse, I'd subscribed to several nursing journals for nearly 40 years. So, when I decided to begin writing Caring Lessons in …
Writer’s High
I'm on a writer's high today--thanks to the Festival of Faith & Writing at Calvin College last week. I'm also tired, but every ouch of muscle revolt is worth it as I start to sort out the 24 notebook pages of notes that I scribbled while attending 15 sessions in three days. If I needed …
Write Along with Me 