Decoration Day
On this Memorial Day, I’m thinking about peonies, which, for some reason, folks in my part of southeastern Illinois always called “pineys,” with a long “i” as in “pine,” meaning to long for. On our farm, when I was a boy, we had peony bushes along the edge of the side yard where each summer…
Read MoreThe Writer as Camera: Perspective in Personal Narratives
When we write personal narratives, we are both the participant and the spectator, both a character in a story and the narrator of that story. From each position, we can adjust the angle of vision, moving the camera slightly, in order to increase our understanding of the people in our lives and the situations that…
Read MoreTelling Our Family Stories
I was talking with a friend the other day about revisiting the past—the often-painful past—when we write memoir. My friend admitted to having night terrors when her work with the story of her mother became too intense. Eventually the conversation swung around to the question of why we do this. Why do we keep going…
Read MoreWhen the Words Won’t Come
This was one of those mornings when I didn’t want to work out, but I knew that if I did, I’d end up feeling better about myself and the world in general. Sometimes we have those days, those days of “just don’t want to”—and, of course, the easy thing is to “just not,” but sometimes…
Read MoreCan’t Never Did Nothing
Take from this what you will. There came a time, toward the end of my father’s life—though we had no way of knowing the days were running out—when I had to bathe him. My mother, his caretaker ever since the farming accident that cost him his hands, was in the hospital, and so I did…
Read MoreLife after the MFA
This is the time of year, nearing graduation, when a number of newly minted MFAs find themselves wondering what their futures hold. They’ve put in their time. They’ve written and studied and taught. They’ve practiced their craft. Many have even published in a few journals. On the whole, they’re writing better than they did when…
Read MoreThe Essay inside the Essay
There’s a skyscraper in downtown Minneapolis whose glass panels catch the reflection of a smaller skyscraper opposite it. To look upon the taller skyscraper makes one believe that the smaller one is rising up inside it. This is how an essay can work. One structure can contain another. The first gives us an organizing principle;…
Read MoreDaydreaming Your Memoir
I saw a photograph once, but now it only exists in my memory. It was an 8 x 10 glossy of the congregation of the Berryville Church of Christ, the church I attended with my mother when I was a small child on our family farm. The church itself was a one-room affair with a…
Read MoreTen Things Writers Can Do This Summer
Spring has me thinking of summer—ah, glorious summer—a time that can seem like a call for renewal and fresh starts for the writer. Here are some things we can all do to get the most from that period of rejuvenation. 1. Get out of our comfort zones. Do something we never thought we’d do. Skydiving?…
Read MoreTips for Novelists
Spring is creeping in, and isn’t it about time? Here in the heartland, we earn our springs. Temperatures above fifty, the sight of green shoots coming up in flowerbeds, birdsong at dawn—it’s enough to give us hope. It takes a world of optimism to write a novel. We have to convince ourselves that such a…
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