Jun 16, 2022
After Fifteen Years, I Stopped Panicking, Started Declawing, and Finally Published My Memoir
At last, I took my teachers’ and mentors’ advice, and scrutinized my own behavior more than anyone else’s.
At last, I took my teachers’ and mentors’ advice, and scrutinized my own behavior more than anyone else’s.
Writing my first jokes, I’d replaced my anxieties over the public-facing demands of an author career with a greater willingness to show up and be seen.
I had always used writing to try and make sense of myself, without realizing just how much of this was a way of processing a divergent experience of the world.
Literature and medicine are not opposed pursuits but rather one in the same endeavor to find sense in messy, human stories.
True crime wants us to believe that our monsters are individual, not systemic—the errant serial killer rather than a violent and inequitable culture.
I was often housing insecure; sometimes even homeless. I’ve had fewer opportunities to publish and I do so at a higher cost.
As part of our Social Media Week series, Leah Johnson writes about using social media to connect with her readers and how she engages online as a recreation rather than an obligation.
As part of our Social Media Week series, Cinelle Barnes writes about being a writer and not being on Twitter.
As part of our Social Media Week series, Kristen Arnett writes about her journey on Twitter, the Hell App, and how she uses the platform to connect with other writers and try out bits.
I love and care for my child unconditionally. Maybe I can do that for my writing too.
I was planting my cornfield, hoping that the magic baseball team (a.k.a my writing group) would eventually show up. If you build it, they will come.
In my MFA, the people who spoke the most were praised for their intelligence. But the pressure to participate isn’t helpful for every student.
To celebrate National Poetry Month, we asked authors the question: “What poem or poet inspires you to keep writing?”
When my Nai Nai asked me about the book, I felt compelled to tell her the truth: that I was scared, but that I was trying.
Choosing one life means missing out on another; it is not possible to be everywhere all at once, to do everything, to be everyone.
As I got better at articulating what customers should read and why, I was becoming equally capable of articulating what kinds of stories I wanted to write.
It’s a bitter irony, courtesy of capitalism: writers working as writers to support the writing we are too spent to do.
From PEN America’s ‘The Sentences That Create Us Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison.’
Whatever your MFA experience, it takes time to create or recreate the life that you can keep writing in. In this essay, Rachel Taube speaks to her cohort members regarding their first year post-MFA.
My book haunted me, as did Lizzie Borden. I thought by making something with my hands, I could transform that fear into care.
