Category: Uncategorized

In her new craft essay, Mary Ann McSweeny illustrates why compassion should be one of the underlying components of all stories, and she explains how it is only when the writer remains a “detached witness” that compassion can flourish. McSweeny provides a list of questions and a brainstorming exercise for writers to immerse their characters […]… Continue reading On Writing With Substance and Compassion — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

For Jennifer McGaha, writing a book is like hiking. The journey will envelop you in foggy haziness, unexpected visitors will creep up along the way, and hopefully others will be there to push you when you’re floundering. She finds joy in not knowing what will happen on a walk or where an essay or book […]… Continue reading Embracing the Unknown: Writing as Discovery — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Jill Quandt I was raised on Texas Hold’em, and knew the odds of faceless, suited hole cards winning the hand were too low to raise pre-flop before I knew how to do long division. I could hold my own in poker games with my dad’s friends, all engineers, before I knew the formal word […]… Continue reading Betting on Words — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Marie A Bailey The first time I saw Pam Houston was in 1991 or 1992. I was a graduate student in English at Florida State University. The university was hosting a creative writing conference and Houston was on one of the panels. I had not read her story collection Cowboys Are My Weakness in […]… Continue reading It Only Takes a Few Words to Love a Book — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Jennifer Jordán Schaller Even though self-compassion is not my strongest trait, I was able to figure out how to characterize myself in my memoir manuscript after reflecting on my writing using a few steps. My manuscript explores the effect of trauma on the ability of the protagonist, that’s me, to parent as an adult. […]… Continue reading Developing a Time of Writing Voice in Memoir — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Rae Pagliarulo “I miss the joy of words,” I said to my coworker through a mouthful of potato chips while trying to ignore the ping of my inbox. “I miss synonyms and antonyms and the thrill of reworking a sentence until it sounds like music.” I had been trying to write on my lunch […]… Continue reading On Writing Back From Grief — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Nancy Jorgensen and Elizabeth Jorgensen Stubbornness runs in our family. I, Nancy, started it all. While my female relatives were all stay-at-home moms, I took my daughters to preschool so I could teach high school choir and direct Broadway-style musicals. My daughter Gwen inherited the trait. While her university peers crawled beer pubs, she […]… Continue reading Three Stubborn Women: On Publishing and Book Promotion — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

A book list featuring contributions from other bookstagrammers. via 11 books that teach you something new — Backpacking Bookworm

I just read Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. What does it mean to steal as an artist? We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. 156 more words via Stealing from our favorite writers — Let’s Get Published

How to meet writing deadlines? For a long time, the only writing deadlines I had were the ones I imposed on myself. When I wanted to self-publish… 284 more words via How to Meet Writing Deadlines? — Let’s Get Published