I’m just going to say this up front: I’ve never balanced work, life, writing, and family. I don’t know how to do that. The only thing I can tell you about in this post is how NOT to do that. I can tell you about my belief that striking such a balance is impossible, and how I’ve always been grateful that I never had to try. I’m…
I write a lot. I devote the majority of every day to writing, reading, and editing. (It really helps to have a work-and-home SigO who is always working.) I know I’m both incredibly lucky to be able to do so and also incredibly boring by most people’s standards. I get antsy when I’m away from my work for too long. Even when I travel—and I travel a lot—I write…
I’m so excited to introduce everyone to Rebecca Fish Ewan, author of By the Forces of Gravity. I met Rebecca last year at Hippocamp, Hippocampus Magazine’s annual Creative Nonfiction conference. She approached me after my breakout session on Experimental Writing and talked about her work, which combined drawings and free verse. It was exactly the type of thing I wanted to add to my presentation, so I was extremely grateful! She even…
On the one hand, it’s easy to discount the need for research in memoir. I mean, who knows your life better than you do? There was actually a good bit of research that went into crafting Girlish. I spoke at length with my siblings, various family members and had many conversations with both my childhood friends and some of my parents’ friends. I read a lot of memoir and poetry…
I held a story in my chest and this story breathed when I breathed, and it flowed through my veins and pulsed with my heartbeat. I couldn’t shut it off. Everything else I tried to write was colored by it. My story needed to be told, so I put it down on pages and it became a book, and then I didn’t have to carry it any longer. As I…
When I decided to leap over the abyss of common sense and devote myself to writing, I came across the infamous “Write Like a Motherfucker” essay by Cheryl Strayed. So write, Elissa Bassist. Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker. —Cheryl Strayed I held onto Cheryl Strayed’s words all through college. When I needed help, I turned to my Facebook Binders group. I met…
For Industry Insiders week, I wanted to introduce you to Andrea Kiliany Thatcher of Smith Publicity, whom I worked with in the months leading up to the release of my memoir, Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home. Andrea Kiliany Thatcher is a Marketing Manager and a Book Publicist at Smith Publicity. Andrea has a long relationship with the independent bookselling community having been a bookseller and social media manager for…
I first met Lisa at HippoCamp 2016 where I attended her incredibly useful session on writing about one topic across multiple pieces. That was my first writing conference ever, and I was so intimidated by everyone that I only spoke to something like five people, of which Lisa was one. We chit chatted in the waiting area to pitch agents and editors for our then-unpublished memoirs, and although I don’t…
Trigger warning: depression, anxiety. People who have experienced trauma may associate the excitement of success with the same physiological reactions as trauma. They avoid subjecting themselves to excitement-inducing circumstances, which causes them to be almost phobic about success. Psychology Today This week’s topic (navigating failure) isn’t hard or scary for me, because I’ve chosen failure for so much of my life. Navigating failure is historically pretty comfortable for me….
I can’t write on paper. Not only is my handwriting wretched, but my hand can’t keep up with my brain, so I’m constantly writing letters out of order. Add in that I’m left-handed, and it’s a miracle that anyone can ever read anything I write at all. I didn’t like writing much of anything until my mother bought our first home computer circa 1985, when I was twelve. Suddenly, I…
