One sweeping difference between autobiography and memoir is that the former is often an intriguing record of the journey of the extraordinary person (Shirley MacLane, Barack Obama, Isadora Duncan) and of the ordinary, or commonplace, parts of the life they might have lived, bringing our heroes down to our size. We like to know the human side of our Giants. Conversely, memoir has come to signify the extraordinary life circumstances of us ordinary folk. The skill required to craft that memoir resides in all of us, no matter how commonplace, we think our lives. If you feel you have a story to tell, you do. That’s a start

No one has adequately explained then, why Madame Bovary’s name (which appeared in 1856) rolls off tongues easily today. Not so that of Mrs P, whose disdain for marriage and explicit reluctance to give herself to her children were too close to reality. Some things had best remain in the shadows even in fiction.

Flaubert’s Mme Bovary has adulterous affairs at a level that makes Edna’s discreet dalliance seem negligible (by today’s standards). Although, played out with different details, both adulteresses, ultimately overwhelmed by despair, submit to forms of self destruction.

what I learned from Fierce Attachments. It has much more to do with Gornick the writer than Gornick the daughter. In the following passage, which comes on page 175 near the end of the book, I feel a surge of exaltation. Yes! This narrator triumphs and thrives despite all; how resilient we are, when we find our craft and art.

The dollar is now the yardstick of cultural authority, and an organ like TIME, which not long ago aspired to shape the national taste, now serves mainly to reflect it. Jonathan Franzen.

“Here in Prison” is a collaboration of writings from various inmates all over the United States sent to me by Joel Fox, inmate at Folsom Prison, whose Buddhist meditation practice I help support through letter writing. Find more info on SF Zen Center Prison Correspondence project here.

Ever identified with a symbol of punctuation? The em dash is obsolete—since we went to computers. But raise your arms at your side if you keep it alive.

15. A good editor should first consider your voice, structure, and the proverbial “narrative arc.”
16. The small stuff in #13 IS important.
17. But, your first concern is that an editor have a form of professional “empathy” for your work.
18. You gather this by listening to what the editor reads/writes back to you about your work.
19. You don’t want to be friends with your editor.
20. You want something more brutally meaningful.

We are all weavers of our destiny. We are all reading our life as its plot, theme, and larger story unfolds before us. Or, we might say, taking in the woof and warp of the tapestry as it falls into place. Some of us are just more aware of the loom and the materials at hand.

3. Process from the inside out: Brief chat on blocks & obstacles (acute & chronic) to writing process, real & perceived (or imagined). I’ll share a bit on my work to break through (using meditation, art therapy) and point to Tolstoy, Hemingway, Woolf, Styron, and other luminaries who all had it. Can you name writing’s Public Enemy No. 1? 4. From the outside in: We’ll read a couple of short pieces, one on the magic & mystique of writing (how it lets our hidden self/material float to the surface); and a second short essay that exemplifies how the deeply personal telegraphs or unpacks the universal.

Writing is drawing that’s been untied and retied. But he likes it as Drawing is writing that’s been untied and retied.I like both. Food for thought.

A full day (8 hours) of writing instruction in a very small group (limited to six participants).
You’ll learn everything from unlocking the writer within, the six key elements of winning creative non-fiction (or personal essays)to understanding the all-important narrative arc, how to shape it, how to cultivate your voice (or voices!) and the delicate art of self-editing. You will write, write, write, and leave inspired.

Coppola says, “I’m convinced there is a hormone in the blood of young writers that makes them hate their own writing.”
The one thing all of my students needed, no matter how skilled they were, was encouragement to keep on with their writing. Having come through the mill of self-doubt, self-criticism, and other self-destructive resistance, I knew how to give the honest support they needed. Writing can be lonely. It can be frightening. In fact, it brings up the whole prism of emotions. But there is nothing like the satisfaction of pulling out the story we know is in us. It is no less art, no less grand and magnificent than Michelangelo’s pulling his David from the block of cararra marble.

This hot, hot summer, being back in New Jersey, the soil of my birth and early breeding, evokes memories of how I loved to read in this season, away from the pressures of other school subjects. I wish I could peel off a long list of books, like in the old days. But I’m only […]