In Defense of Narrative in Creative Nonfiction
Is it just me, or has narrative fallen out of favor with a large number of creative nonfiction writers? While I admire the lyric, the experimental, and all the forms that we continue to create in this extremely elastic genre, I still encourage young writers not to be so quick to dismiss narrative because narrative…
Read MoreMemoir and the Imagination
I’ve been spending some time lately wandering through cemeteries, chasing down departed ancestors. I particularly love the old country graveyards, some of them alongside small churches, some of them on hillsides along gravel roads, some of them only accessible by driving through a farmer’s barn lot or down grassy lanes between cornfields.…
Read MoreOn Sunday: One Writer’s Prayer
Give me this day a focus of mind, a love of the word, a willingness to try to understand those who confound me, a patience with my own shortcomings, a forgiveness for every time I didn’t write as well as I might have, compassion from those I’ve hurt, tolerance for those who have offended me.…
Read MoreFinishing Our First Drafts
Painted in white letters on a lane of the high school track where I sometimes run or walk is the word, “Finish.” Each time I passed it on Father’s Day this year, I thought of how my own father made sure I understood the importance of completing what I started. I know I’ve told…
Read MoreWriters’ Retreats
I recently had the pleasure of teaching at a writers’ retreat sponsored by The Sun Magazine in North Carolina, and I came away with what I always do when I’m a part of such groups: a reinforced belief in the power of the written word. Not that I ever doubted—I’ve always believed that writing is…
Read MoreDecoration 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…
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