what I’ve been reading recently

It’s been a while since I posted what I have been reading, but I assure you, the books have been coming at me:
-The Blessing, by Gregory Orr. (Heavy, but beautifully written memoir. He’s a famous poet.)
-American Requiem, by James Carroll. (Also a heavy memoir, but less beautifully written and much, much more melodramatic. Of interest [...]

I have caught Present Tense.

In my memoir workshop especially, we’ve been talking about using present tense to make something seem more immediate, or to dramatize a scene of importance. A lot of my classmates like to write in present tense. When I read a piece that’s all in present tense, I usually get annoyed by it, because most writers [...]

Newsflash: Writing a book is hard.

I’m up to 108 pages in the Korea book. Sometimes I feel as if I have written so much more than that. Probably I have…I have a folder on my computer called “Leftovers” where I stash paragraphs and scenes that I’ve cut out of what I’ve already written or that haven’t found a place in [...]