Quotes

By Kat Read “I just wrote it down, sent it out, and now I feel so much better. It was totally like therapy.” I get why people say that. In my personal essays, I write narratives that thread through my life, and sometimes that feels really cathartic and revelatory and all of the wonderful things […]… Continue reading Therapy As Writing — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Nicole Walker It was after one of four Provost candidate presentations at Northern Arizona University that Julie Piering, Chair of the Philosophy Department, pulled me aside. She asked, have you heard of the Great Survival Debate, modeled after a long-standing tradition at the University of Montevallo in Central Alabama? I said, yes. I’m on […]… Continue reading Why English/Creative Writing is the Most Important Discipline Post the Apocalypse — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Kathy Ewing “You can always just pretend to be writing,” my friends said when I told them about my upcoming adventure. To celebrate November, National Novel Writing Month, Appletree Books in my hometown of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, invited writers to sit inside the display window and write. I accepted the invitation. “You’ll be on […]… Continue reading Sitting in a Bookstore Window Writing about Sitting in a Bookstore Window Writing — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

by Jonathan Arlan Once, in a poetry workshop I took in college, a student likened the writing process, in a good way, to a natural disaster. “It’s like a huge tornado,” he said. “Once I get sucked up inside, I just write and write and write.” “Yeah,” swooned another girl, “it’s like a hurricane and […]… Continue reading Watching My Words: A Writer Learns to Trim the Fat — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Jenny Klion If you counted backward from three hundred and ninety one, which is the exact number of words you need to complete your daily requisite word count of one thousand (#1000wordsofsummer)—less now, since with every word, every letter you type, you’re getting closer to that three hundred and ninety one more words to […]… Continue reading How To Fulfill Your Word Count — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

by Jan Priddy Students ask: What is creative nonfiction? Is it made up? Who got the idea first? Lee Gutkind, founder of Creative Nonfiction magazine, is on the record that he did not coin the term, that the concept predates him, whatever it’s called. The genre of creative nonfiction covers a lot of ground. It… Continue reading Beyond Just Reporting: The Creative in Creative Nonfiction — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Laura Barakeris Surrounded by others all day and crushed by the noise of the Internet, I often struggle to slow my thoughts and pace enough to write. Because most of my day is turned out—getting information, communicating, checking my to-do list, meetings—it is hard to turn back inwards and write about what I have… Continue reading On Writing and Artistic Solitude — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

I’ve found ‘one weird trick’ that gets me to the end of major projects: Doing one thing. It seems so simple, and yet this morning I: Checked email Made breakfast Gave feedback on pages Tore apart my closet looking for a thing I tucked away while I was on vacation, and had hidden so well […]… Continue reading Finish Your Book — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

by Jan Priddy Students ask: What is creative nonfiction? Is it made up? Who got the idea first? Lee Gutkind, founder of Creative Nonfiction magazine, is on the record that he did not coin the term, that the concept predates him, whatever it’s called. The genre of creative nonfiction covers a lot of ground. It… Continue reading Beyond Just Reporting: The Creative in Creative Nonfiction — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

By Lenore Franzen At my writer’s group recently, we were going around the circle and checking in—giving the others an update on our own writing, perhaps raising an issue we’d been facing. One woman, when it was her turn, expressed frustration over a question she is asked often by those who know she’s working on […]… Continue reading What to Say to a Writer — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog