My dear friend and student Jacqueline Winspear was in town yesterday promoting her new book (it appears on the NYT’s best seller list next Sunday) and she came over to my house for lunch. We sat at my kitchen table and talked about writing and books and I just wish I had taken notes, that’s…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
The Corpse in the Office
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
An unpublished novel of mine has been lurking in my office for the past five years. I feel like I have a corpse in the cabinet. I finally realized I had to either deal with it or bury the damn thing. I’ve decided to deal with it. It’s got a great plot but I could…
Student Spotlight
Two Books by Students
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
Shivani Mehta has just published an amazing book of prose poems, Useful Information for the Soon-to-be Beheaded. As with all good poetry I can’t really explain these poems, but Shivani’s language and images simply soar. Girls with voices of glass, memories are “as thick as sails against the horizon”, and “…the closing of my mouth…
Getting Published
A Message from the Marketing Whore
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
From New World Library's Website: (Their words below, not mine.) KICKING IN THE WALL A Year of Writing Exercises, Prompts, and Quotes to Help You Break Through Your Blocks and Reach Your Writing Goals When Patti Smith was plagued with writer’s block — “scattered and stymied, surrounded by unfinished songs and abandoned poems” — playwright…
teaching writing
Refrigerators as Art: A Writing Prompt
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
Life is so funny and connected sometimes. Right after I did the last post about my refrigerator (and the photo was not mine by the way, but off Google Images) – I was actually driving to the market, finally, and on NPR I hear Lynne Rossetto Kasper interviewing a photographer on her cooking show, The…
Getting Published
Writers & Their Refrigerators
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
This is embarressing to tell you but my refrigerator is almost empty. Every morning I really intend to get to Trader Joes, intend to buy food, but I end up in my office at my computer for the whole day instead. Yesterday in desperation, not to mention hunger, R. went to Vons and bought himself…
Teaching Writing
Writers in Elevators
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
Literally (UCLA Writers Studio instructors above in an elevator) and the process: up and down. I wish writing could be all ups – but there are more bottom floors, if not basements, in writing than soaring to the heights of inspiration. However teaching in the Writers Studio last week was all ups. The biggest thrill…
teaching writing
Check Your Breasts
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
To my female readers: Sixteen years ago on Valentine's Day I learned I had breast cancer. It was exactly six months before my second wedding and I was worried that: A. I might not be around for my wedding, and B. if I was around, I'd be bald with no eyelashes. I was one of…
teaching writing
Why We Write
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 1 Comment
A few days ago i read the review of Why We Write by David Ulin in the L. A. Times – and the review was so interesting that I immediately sent him an email to tell him I was ordering the book cause of what he wrote. It just arrived and now all I want…
Personal Essays
Personal Essays
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
On Thursday I start teaching the personal essay course at UCLA Extension's annual Writers Studio. Boot camp for essayists, 10:00 am to 6:00 everyday for four days. I'm excited about the subject, the students who are coming, and the take-no-prisoners attitude of the whole Studio experience. Here's the thing about writing personal essays: they never…
