Writing Nonfiction
Tinkerbell’s Cousin and the Great Untangle
By Lisa Tener When I offered in a Facebook post to take a volunteer on a “Meet Your Muse” journey free of charge, in exchange for fodder for my SFWC column, Jess Robinson was first to raise her hand. On deadline, I asked her, “How soon can you meet?” Thus, our call took place on…
Read MoreA Treatise on Playfulness
A word on play. A serious word on play. I write this as one who just wrote a craft book. Which might be defined as a lot of thinking about writing: how it happens, why it happens, how to do it, why do it. When I grew up in the early Pleistocene era, there were…
Read MoreGet Inspired by Art with Mary Rakow: Small details have a big impact on your story
by Mary Rakow FURTHER INTRODUCTION TO THIS COLUMN As we saw in the first and second posts, we can find inspiration for secular writing in religious art, and inspiration for religious writing in secular art. Why? Because great art crosses all boundaries and categories. We also saw that once we write a text it starts…
Read MoreHow Nonfiction Books Build Conversations, Connections, and Community
by Michelle Travis I’m a law professor by day. For the past twenty years, I’ve used my research and writing to advocate for advancing women’s workplace equality and work/family integration. I’ve gained an understanding of the barriers to women’s career advancement, and I’ve become an expert on legal and policy reforms like paid family and…
Read MoreWrite a Book Starting at the End
By Martha Alderson (Martha Alderson will be teaching at the Writing For Change: Worldwide Craft Conference September 12-13. For more information, please visit the Writing For Change: Worldwide website. Or register here.) Every book is made up of a beginning, middle, and an end. Usually writers start writing at the beginning of their books, a…
Read MoreMemoir as a Method for Change
by Brooke Warner (Brooke Warner will be speaking with Michelle Tea on the topic of using your memoir as a force for change at San Francisco Writing For Change: Worldwide on September 8. Register and join us for this Inspiration Conversation!) I was twelve or thirteen when I read Go Ask Alice. It was fiction,…
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