Story Matters
On writing, memoir and self-discovery
Recent Posts
Why Finding Your Passion Is Such Terrible Advice
Prepare for a hard truth: We’re pretty bad at most things when we first try them.
This article, published in the New York Times Smarter Living newsletter, holds important lessons for memoirists and other nonfiction book authors. Namely, that writing—even if you’re passionately drawn to it, takes a lot of work, […]
Write Your Story, Change Your Life*
One morning in mid-August a few years ago, I stood in my small condo in Denver paralyzed by fear and inertia. My beloved older sister had died of cancer ten months earlier, my mother died two months after that, and my father decided that very morning he didn’t want to […]
Yes, Yes, Hell No! How to Know You’re On the Right Writing Path
A few weeks ago, I was nearing the end of a daylong intensive with a client who’d come to me for help mapping out a nonfiction book. When the day began, she spoke of wanting to write a book about leadership—something that might gather together years of insight she’d gained […]
What Teaching Writing Has Taught Me About the Human Condition
I’ve taught writing for years, primarily to adults who yearn to tell stories about personal experience. I’ve worked with doctors and lawyers, comedians and chronic liars, entrepreneurs and private eyes, and not one but two strippers—both of whom also happened to be English teachers.
Sitting at a glossy mahogany dining table […]
Writing With Gold Coins
Not long ago, I read Ann Patchett’s extraordinary collection of essays, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. The book blew me away because Patchett’s stories seemed so, well, unassuming. How is she doing this? I wondered. How is she able to keep my attention […]
5 Ways to Fight Fear and Doubt
I recently started a new writing project and for the last few days have been engaged in a full-on dogfight with fear and doubt. The project didn’t start with fear. Instead, it began—and progressed—like all my writing projects:
A vague idea that had been with me for several months started to […]
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