by Carol McCarthy | Mar 22, 2025 | posts
Remember that old phrase used when someone unintentionally uttered a rhyme? “You’re a poet, and you don’t even know it.” Despite accidental harmonizing, I am not a poet, and I do know it. I’ve made my living as a writer and editor, largely at newspapers, and currently...
by Ruth W. Crocker | Feb 24, 2025 | posts
“Do you swear to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” We’ve heard this intimidating oath in every television show with a courtroom scene. Fortunately, writers of memoir and personal essay don’t have to make this declaration – at least...
by Ginny Bitting | Feb 4, 2025 | posts
There was definite relief and excitement after I wrote the first third of my novel, around the turn of the 20th century in Valentine, Nebraska. From what I’d already written, I ‘distilled’ an outline—a series of large post-It notes that captured the dramatic essence...
by Bethe Dufresne | Nov 12, 2024 | posts
As I filled out “Please vote!” postcards before this month’s election, the hardest part wasn’t correctly copying all the names, adhering to the approved message (“Do not alter or expand this script!” warned my instruction sheet), or drawing pictures on the cards,...
by Maura Casey | Oct 30, 2024 | posts
I was editing my book, “Saving Ellen: A Memoir of Hope and Recovery” and could see the finish line. The draft I had handed into Skyhorse Publishing at the end of April had weighed in at 86,000 words. I had written the book over two years starting at the beginning of...
by Lisa Brownell | Apr 10, 2024 | posts
I was not a rebellious child, but by third grade I’d discovered the thrill of occasionally breaking a rule — the stupider the regulation, the better it felt. My elementary school had a decree that students should never step on the grass. The school sat on an acre of...
