Before having my son, I was terrified that somehow crossing the threshold from individual into the territory of mother would somehow strip me of my identity as writer. I think this came from reading an article in The Atlantic years ago that said the only way you could be a mother and a writer is to only have one child. This scared me because I knew I probably wanted more than one. Writing has always been so important to me that I didn’t want to let it go. It is my creative ou

The first writer's group I belonged to formed right after I graduated from my MFA in creative writing at California College of the Arts. This is probably one of the biggest benefits of pursuing an MFA--aside from the few blissful years of binge-writing--finding a community of writers and readers you respect and admire. So a few friends and I hand-selected a group of recent writing grads who fit the bill. We met every other week for the two years I lived in San Francisco post

Yes, I used all caps there. Why? Because I have some great big book news that is a long time coming. Drum roll please . . . My first novel, The Way You Sleep, will be published by She Writes Press on April 14, 2020. Mark your calendars! Why am I so so so excited? Because I've wanted to publish books since I was about, oh, five or six years old. And I can't wait to actually hold the book in my hands. What is the novel about? In the effort to test his own resilience, twenty-fiv

After I finished writing my second novel, my mother was the first person to read the whole thing through. “What’d you think?” I asked her, hungry for the gratuitous gush of maternal admiration over my skills as a writer and overall perfection as a daughter. “Hmm,” she said, pausing to consider. “I think your end needs a twist. And I liked the first novel you wrote better.” Welcome to the big, beautiful world of Beta Readers. Beta Readers are those who offer to read your work

In college, when I first started traveling without my family, I discovered the sensual joy of being totally anonymous and unseen in a new city. The smell of that bakery on the corner. The color of those flowers. The hum of bikes riding by. No one knows me! I could be anything, unjudged, made new. Travel was the closest thing I could find to an invisibility cloak and, as a nosy eavesdropper who loves to people watch, this thrilled me. So I road-tripped across Canada by myself,

For the past twelve years, I have been asking all my amazing friends each December to write a love letter to the year ahead, reflecting on the year just past. This prompt has brought about some of the most inspiring/hilarious/heartfelt words each and every year. I encourage you to write your own! They can be extremely cathartic and eye-opening. What are your writing or publishing goals for the year ahead? What are you willing to leave behind in 2018? Below is my personal Love

With the winter holidays blowing into our lives in a swirl of tinsel, yankee swaps, and fruit cake over the next few weeks, I tend to think a lot about home and family--both the ones we were given as children and the ones we choose to curate in our adult lives. Home is both the physical spaces we inhabit and relationships we nurture. I have taught a writing workshop in the past called "Homeward Bound" and for something a little different this week, I wanted to offer a couple

This past week I attended opening night of the Massachusetts Conference for Women to see keynote speakers Elizabeth Gilbert, Franchesca Ramsey, and Aly Raisman. I have always wanted to hear Elizabeth Gilbert speak as I love what she has to say about creativity and writing in her Ted Talk and her book Big Magic. I first read her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, in my early twenties during a time when I’d just moved across the country, broken up with my longtime boyfriend, and started

Social media writing groups are inundated with posts by excited writers exclaiming that they have written a draft of a novel and are now ready to publish! *Cue cringing* What I want to delicately remind these excited writers is that writing a novel draft is only the beginning. It is one of the most important things I try to teach my writing students: just because you have a first draft doesn’t mean you are ready to turn in the final. Now is the time to get your hands dirty--t

One of my favorite physical activities is trail running. I like the simplicity: trail shoes, dog, and open woods. I love the focus it requires on the few feet of roots and rocks and earth in front of me so I don’t fall on my ass. I love the wildness I feel crashing through the trees. More about that here. I never listen to music. I don’t really care about my time or pace or racing. I just like to clear my head and pay attention to my surroundings. My favorite trail running ac

I am grateful for these words that spiral through me. The ones that have always been there. When I read my own writing, I worry that there won’t be enough left inside me for the next time I try to write. And the time after that. But something, at least, always seems to be there. Maybe not beautiful, or perfect, but still something. I am always stressing to my undergraduate writing students the importance of expression. I believe it is critically important for all of us to hav

I have been thinking a lot lately about responsibility. About who and what we are each responsible for in our lives. There are many articles and studies published today that decree a life of service is the key to a happiness. Giving to and helping others--and focusing your life’s purpose on this goal--is the surest way to achieve a sense of personal fulfillment while benefiting others. But how do we choose a cause? How do we know how to be in service? The past few years, and

I am going to say something controversial here: I don’t believe in writer’s block. There you go. I said it. It’s something I’ve believed for a long time and as a writing professor, I have found, semester after semester, this to be true. I think "writer’s block" is an excuse used by the uninitiated--those who haven’t been writing long enough to recognize it for what it is. It’s just an excuse not to write. It's in the same family as: I’m too tired to write. The house needs to

I was asked recently what my goals were for publishing my novel and after thinking briefly about it, I said, "to have people read it." It sounds simple, but I really want to push my work out into the world so others can sit down and curl up to it. And so I can move on to write new projects. Growing up, books made such a difference in my life that I would love for even one person to read a book I wrote and take something away from it. As I young girl, I remember reading young

On my 23rd birthday, I woke up in California--only a month and a half into my stint living across the country from all my family and friends--to an email and a voicemail from an agent at Don Congdon Associates. They wanted to offer me representation for my YA novel--my first novel. This is it, I thought, absolutely ecstatic. I wrote the novel, I got the agent, and soon I’d have a publisher and then I’ll be the famous, full-time novelist I’d always dreamed of being. All before

"Mr. Allen played the guitar and said he had published articles and had a friend who was eaten by an alligator and immediately he was my hero. I want to be published I told him." I started writing when I was five. To be more specific, I started copying my childrens books--now referred to as “plagiarism”--onto folded sheets of construction paper and calling them books. My first masterpiece was this inspirational, heart-wrenching tale of a young, scared animal separated forever