Author: Kate Stover

“I became a fine singer . . .in later years I was to be of great help to my husband with his song writing.”

As a fan of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, I was unaware of the role that Burns’ wife played with the development of his songs until I toured the home that he lived in at the time of his death in 1796. Jean, who by all accounts had a beautiful … Read More

“The man o’ independent mind / He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.”

Picture this: in the 1700s, a poet from Scotland united his fellow countrymen by showing them how to respond to the rich and powerful. He recommended laughter. Meet Robert Burns – known as the “ploughman poet” – who grew up doing backbreaking field work during the day and learning French … Read More

“We did not have clothes suitable for church.”

The New York Times uses “spare” and “charming” to describe this memoir about growing up on a Wisconsin farm during the Great Depression. I would add “remarkable” to this list. When she was six years old, the children at her school contributed their pennies to buy a doll for Carlson … Read More

“I stand here coiled in orbits, head to foot, because this tilted world is where I live.”

The great poet Henry Taylor must have been in a cranky mood when he compiled this collection of 100 poems that span his 50-year career. Taylor chose not to follow the convention of inviting a respected peer to write an introduction; he selected a cover that makes it look like … Read More

“There is a notion that creative people are absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social customs and obligations.”

The poet Mary Oliver continues: “It is, hopefully, true.” She argues that interruptions and schedules and errands are the enemies of creative work. I’ve been thinking a lot about the level of concentration that writing require. I’m working with writers this summer who, in many cases, haven’t taken classes for … Read More

“Writing is similar to psychotherapy in that emotional disclosure is part of the healing process.”

Some of the people who attend my memoir workshops come to write their family history, others want to write memorable stories, and yet others want to discover meaningful answers to their questions about “life.” This book, written by a psychotherapist, is for this third group of people.  It describes … Read More

“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo . . .”

Virginia Woolf argues that life is not comprised of an orderly series of events, but rather, life is complex and spiritual in nature. Therefore, when writing about life, novelists should “. . . convey this varying, unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display . . .” … Read More

“There was this air, this light, a day of thorough and forgetful happiness . . .”

How many Pulitzer-Prize winning poets write about happiness? I can think of only one, Henry Taylor, who is considered by some critics to be “deliberately, determinedly unfashionable.” Why? Perhaps it is because his “technically well-ordered style and leisurely reflections of life” (which are comparable to Robert Frost’s work) are “now … Read More

“People writing about imaginary events were less depressed than people writing about actual trauma.”

In Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction, Jessica Lourey cites academic research that found that people who write fiction can experience more physical health benefits than people who write autobiography.  In my college classes, I’ve found that asking students to write about topics … Read More

“The writer must solve two problems: Can it be done? and, Can I do it?”

Every book, story, and poem, Annie Dillard says, presents challenges, “which the writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.” That’s when the real work begins. Can it be done? Can the writer engage our intellects and our hearts? Why are we reading, Dillard asks, “if not in hope … Read More

“Embrace the crumbs with the cake.”

It’s been eight years since I last read this book, and this time around, I’m struck by Goldberg’s advice to pay attention to memorable, small pieces. In fact, one of the best ways to write about the “monumental” is to begin by describing one “crumb” of it. Other writers … Read More

“Thorny people. They don’t always follow the etiquette.”

What do you think a story about a thorny family would include? If it’s by Anne Tyler, and if it covers a period of sixty years, you can expect to see that things don’t always work out. For example, the central character, named Mercy, does not have a close relationship … Read More

“When his wife had been alive, he had hardly noticed Jessie Morrow; indeed, if possible, he had noticed her even less than he had noticed his wife.”

In a 1978 BBC radio program, Barbara Pym said, “Perhaps I’ve been influenced by something I was once told about Proust – that he was said to go over all his characters and make them worse.” I laughed when I heard this because Pym does have a way of … Read More

“What would happen if one conceptualized a social system as a system of energy?”

Here’s a radical idea: The primary responsibility of teachers and leaders is not to issue orders; it’s to release the energy of the people and manage the processes for using that energy to achieve goals. This idea was ahead of its time when Malcolm Knowles published it in 1983. It … Read More

“Turn procrastination into rehearsal.”

Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, describes writers like me when he says that when we’re not writing, we are often doubting ourselves. We feel bad.  Instead, we could think of this period of delay as something constructive. We could reframe it as rehearsal. Just … Read More