Yesterday was the release day for Lara’s memoir. Over the past half-year, I’ve grown to adore both Lara and her writing as I’ve gotten to know her as a colleague on the Debutante Ball. I’ve read many a memoir before so I knew to expect a lot of personal information, but this is the first time I’ve read one written by someone I know. And man, was I surprised….
You do not owe toxic people a place in your life. Whoever they are, whatever they tell you, whatever strings they think they can tug on, you don’t owe them. This is something I thought about a lot while reading Girlish. Lara’s life looks nothing like mine, but a lot of the feelings resonate. I know what it’s like to be gaslit. I know how confusing, disorienting, and infuriating that…
I have had several kinds of critique partners on Girlish. I didn’t have a writing group that met once a week and read each other’s works in progress, but I did have several key people, all located in different parts of the country, who read my work and helped me whip it into shape. Some of the chapters were written during my MFA at West Virginia Wesleyan College, where…
This was my laptop’s wallpaper through out the months of crafting my memoir: I have posted it on Facebook too many times to count. When I wake in the middle of the night short of breath from anxiety, when the idea of my memoir coming into the world seems too much to bear, I chant it over and over. Your silence will not protect you. I had first read…
First drafts are my favorite drafts. I love the immersion in the story and the constant internal pressure to write and write until it is all out. When I’m writing a first draft I don’t screw off much on social media, don’t return emails promptly, and often drive by my exits on the expressway without noticing. During my first draft, I’m definitely a fly by the seat of my pants…
This week’s topic is the road not taken—how choosing a different path might’ve affected our writing. First of all, there’s a whole theory about Frost’s “Road Not Taken” actually being ironic, meaning that the choosing the other path wouldn’t have made any difference whatsoever. I prefer interpretations that irritate the majority because I am cantankerous by nature, so of course this is the interpretation I feel is most correct. The…
I first met Dr. Laurie Jean Cannady at HippoCamp—Hippocampus Magazine’s 2016 writer’s conference. I have to admit that I was so awestruck to meet her in person that I didn’t talk to her for more than 96 seconds. Writers are my rockstars, and I’m easily intimidated. It’s not that she was that terror-inducing as a person, it’s just that I loved her book, CRAVE: SOJOURN OF A HUNGRY SOUL so…
I have always been afraid. Whispering thoughts circle my head at night—so many things I’ve done, words I’ve said that I can’t take back. How my choices might hurt my children—the things that I can’t undo as well as the things that I don’t want to undo. I wonder what people really think about me, and who they tell. Will my children overhear them? It’s not lies I am afraid…
Today on the Debutante Ball, I’m honored to welcome our very own Lynn K. Hall, author of CAGED EYES, an insider’s account of misogyny and rape in the US military and her extraordinary path to recovery and activism. Desperate to realize her childhood dream of being an astronaut, Lynn K. Hall was an enthusiastic young cadet. For Hall, the military offered an escape from her chaotic home—her erratic mother, absent biological…
Congratulations to Krysti from YA & Wine, winner of our #DebBallGiveaway of Tiffany D. Jackson’s ALLEGEDLY! We send our thanks to our very own Abby Fabiaschi for being our guest yesterday on The Debutante Ball. If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of I LIKED MY LIFE. Or you can enter to win a signed hardcover by retweeting on twitter: Interview with Abby Fabiaschi + #DebBallGiveaway of I LIKED MY LIFE https://t.co/g6NNpL1Wty…
