I have an essay in a book that’s just been published - The Art of Grandparenting, edited by Valerie Connelly.  You can find it on Amazon. The essay is called “Knocked Sideways by Love” and it’s about my relationship with that perfect and beloved trio: Emma, Axel and Grace.   Writing longer essays for anthologies…

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    I did an on-line interview a few months ago and thought I’d share the questions and answers with you –   1.      What types of life experiences make good essays?  What kinds do not?  I think any experience can make a good personal essay if the writer feels deeply enough about the experience - and has come…

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I just went through my rejected essay graveyard. There’s one about a white river rafting trip that I sent to every newspaper and magazine I could think of – and it was rejected time after time. Rereading the essay, I can understand why. The ending has everything but the seven dwarfs singing to the birds.…

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This is part of my article on writing the personal essay that will appear in The Writer Magazine next March.  ___________________________________________________________________ Step Four: Rewriting       Remember: writing is rewriting.       First, look at the opening paragraph of your essay. Do you pull the reader in right away?  Do the first sentences set up…

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Step Three        Emotion is at the heart of your personal essay. You need to feel deeply about your subject, whether it’s crazed frustration over something trivial, or a deeper emotion about a serious subject. This emotion can come out of wanting to maintain dignity while things beyond your control are falling apart (often…

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Here’s the next step for writing a personal essay. Of all the genres of creative writing this is the most accessible and most publishable. Each and every one of you out there has a personal essay to write. Step Two: Narrative or Scenes?       What is the door into your essay? Is there a…

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Okay – no more cable news, no more three newspapers every morning, no more checking into Huffington Post, Google News et al. Back to work. And in this spirit I’m posting the first step from my article for the Writer Magazine. Step One:       The milestones of your life can be subjects for personal…

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Rarely do I have dreams that are true narratives, but last night I had one. I was trying to get into a theater to see a performance and had to scale a wall,  balance on a very narrow walkway, then once inside I got all tangled up in electrical cords and had to take my…

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_________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you for all your comments left after the last post about Al. Your thoughts and condolences were moving and comforting and much appreciated by everyone in my family.  I didn’t have a digital photo of Al and my mother to post so today I took a picture of a photograph of them with…

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