Last week in my undergraduate fiction workshop, I found myself talking about the value of mystery in the opening of a short story. Of course, there are a number of ways to open a story, but let’s say you’re desperate for one. Let’s say you’re in the pre-writing stage of a new story, and not…

A few days ago, I made the following post on Facebook: One of my boyhood friends died yesterday (here we are in the middle row of this photo: I, on the far left with my arm over my eyes, and he, on the far right wearing a white T-shirt).  Although I hadn’t seen him or…

My MFA in Creative Nonfiction workshop at Ohio State went through some activities last week to help them with revising their essays. Two of the people in the workshop, Cait Weiss and Jody Gerbig Todd, have been kind enough to allow me to share the activities that they devised. I hope you’ll find them as…

Often the thing we’ve come to say in an essay hovers just at the periphery of our first drafts and in us as well. There are places in those drafts where we can almost bring our most important thoughts to full articulation via reflection, narration, or the artful arrangement of images. Subsequent drafts are usually…

Sitting peacefully, doing nothing spring comes and the grass grows all by itself.  —Lao Tzu I’m nearing the end of the first draft of a new novel. Maybe a scene or two more, and I’ll have it. Already, I know what my first revision strategy will be. Put that sucker away. Put it out of…

Last week’s entry featured my advice that undergraduates delay their applications for MFA programs, but if those undergraduates are still intent on making their applications, it’s time to think about how to choose where to apply. Of course, this advice will work for any applicant, no matter his or her age. Follow the Money There…

‘Tis the season when undergraduates’ thoughts turn toward applying for admission to an MFA program, which has me thinking of how different the culture is these days than it was when I got my B.A. in 1978. Although I knew I wanted to write, I also knew I needed a bit more seasoning. In those…

After years of writing both fiction and nonfiction, I’ve come to believe that the term, “storyteller,” best fits what I do. Sometimes I tell stories about things that really happened in my life, sometimes I tell stories about things that really happened but with a healthy dose of invention added to the tale, and sometimes…

My mother, when she was in her last years, had a habit of sitting in her chair, her hands on the arms, her fingers lifting and pressing down, one by one, as if she were playing scales on the piano. She’d never played a piano. In fact, she had no musical talent at all. She…

My elderly aunt has a neighbor who doesn’t like the way “the college kids” speed by his house with their cd players blasting and thumping. He’s ready to take action. One day, my aunt and her friend saw this man sitting in a lawn chair in his driveway. As usual, he was grousing about those…