WritingTag

Portrait of a Woman Flying

María was seven years old on her first day of work, the morning her father left her in Mexico City at a large house with tall ceilings and walls that were covered in tiles. Whenever she got homesick, ...

A Crip Writer’s Advice for Surviving a Pandemic

 “Write a book!”“Finish your memoir!”“Turn all this fear and grief into brilliant poetry!”As we have all now found out, the cultural imperative to be as productive as possible doesn’t disappear ...

On Trying Not To Fly By the Seat of My Pants

I’m a writer who regularly finishes projects, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a writer with a regular practice. This is something I feel I should be able to correct and yet somehow writing continues ...

Act Now to Keep Seasonal Creativity Disorder at Bay!

It’s not winter yet, but as we head into fall it’s starting to get darker earlier. It’s also getting colder. Maybe some days you’ve even wished you’d worn a light scarf or gloves as you walked ...

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Between Writing Projects

Lately, I’ve felt a bit unmoored. For the last 6 years, I’ve organized my spare time around working on my novel. I’ve either been working on it or worrying about not having time to work on it, or ...

Why We Need to Celebrate All Our Writing Milestones – Even the Small Ones

A few years ago, I got an offer to purchase a small personal finance blog that I ran. The buyer agreed to the amount that I asked for – only there was a catch. They would give me a third of the money ...

How Heated Fitness Classes Improved My (Writing) Life

It’s a given that entrepreneurs are supposed to invest in their business, accumulate assets, and build something bigger than themselves. Writing is what I do, it’s my business. When I started teaching, ...

How to Secure a Literary Agent

With spring just around the corner (we hope), there’s a renewed sense of optimism in the air. Writers are slowly emerging from the depths of their hobbit holes, and some have manuscripts ready to be ...

On Burnout

I’ve finished my first book. I’ve done the writing, the rewriting, the editing, more rewriting, the copy editing, the fact checking… I think you get the point. It was a lot of work. But now I’m ...

Coming to Voice

I worked on this piece while at a residency for BIPOC writers in the fall of 2017. I did not pick it up again when I returned. While workshopping it there, I was not convinced it captured what I was trying ...