Category: non-fiction

“Observe, observe perpetually.”

More than 400 years ago, Michel de Montaigne of France invented a new literary tradition of close inward observation. “It is a thorny undertaking,” he writes, “to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind.” Scholars, such as Sarah Bakewell, credit him with being the first to experiment … Read More

“Judging by her publicity photos, the natural assumption would be that American novelist Edith Wharton wrote in a traditional manner, at the gold-tooled leather-topped desk in her extremely well-stocked library.”

But this was “in fact a deliberate illusion.” She wrote in bed. Why? Johnson suspects that it had something to do with the desire to delay getting dressed, which for women in the 1800s, meant getting tied into a corset. And there’s more: Proust lined the walls and ceiling of … Read More

“Any radical change in poetic form is likely to be the symptom of some very much deeper change in society and in the individual.”

What a crank T. S. Eliot must have been! He is the champion of contradiction. Consider this: his difficult and complex poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” revolutionized poetry, and many consider it to be a prime example of social criticism. And yet, he wrote “To me … Read More

“Americans, it turns out, smile more than any other society on earth.”

Susan Cain, whose book Quiet launched her career as the Patron Saint of Introverts ten years ago, has written a new book that validates English teachers, artists, and everyone who is drawn to sad stories. Her argument – that “sorrow and longing make us whole” – is not new, but … Read More

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“There is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go.”

Annie Dillard describes two kinds of seeing.  The first kind of seeing is like taking pictures with a camera, moving from shot to shot, reading your light meter.  In the second kind, you become the camera, and your body’s shutter opens, and the moment’s light prints on you. To see … Read More

“Self-trust is the essence of heroism.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s description of heroism looks simple: heroes have strong values; they don’t listen to doubters. But Emerson’s essays can be described as collections of complex ideas. He also says that heroism “has pride; it is the extreme of individual nature” (177). If you are hoping to find … Read More

“But memoir is neither testament nor fable nor analytic transcription.”

So, then, what is memoir? A memoir should “lift from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver wisdom.”  In other words, the writer’s story needs to illustrate a point. Rather than simply telling us what happened, the writer should tell us why what … Read More