by Maura Casey | May 6, 2025 | posts
For five years I have been immersed in various stages of writing “Saving Ellen: A Memoir of Hope and Recovery.” Yet the act of writing a book, and now having written one, is a constant revelation. I am in new territory. During my decades-long career at four...
by Susan Kietzman | Apr 22, 2025 | posts
Last week, I gleefully attended the book launch for Saving Ellen, a debut memoir by fellow Mystic Writer Maura Casey. Why gleefully? Two reasons: one, I’m wildly excited for Maura, who has worked and waited for this moment; and two, it wasn’t my book launch. Does this...
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,...
