“I’ve sometimes wondered whether novelists like to be remembered for what they’ve said or because they’ve said it in their own particular way – in their own distinctive voice.”

April 3, 2024

In 1978, the BBC invited Barbara Pym to be a guest on its program where well-known writers discussed their work. Her views on the “distinctive voice” of a writer was of particular interest: in the 1960s, her publisher declined her seventh novel because he said her style … Read More

“You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.”

March 28, 2024

After winning the UK’s most prestigious writing award, this Irish novelist was asked which books had influenced her most. She said she loved Writing Down the Bones because it told her to “just have a go and see what comes out.” This 30-year-old book still sells 30.000 … Read More

“I don’t think you’re dying, ” I said. “I think you’ve just got a touch of cancer.”

March 21, 2024

What’s the hardest book to write successfully? For me, it would be a novel about teenagers who have cancer, fall in love, and then die. The challenges include: creating a page-turner (even though the readers know how it will end), having the characters be interesting but not … Read More

“Show me yourself.”

March 13, 2024

Anna Quindlen says that when Barry Jenkins was filming The Underground Railroad, he directed the actors to “Show me yourselves.” In other words, don’t act. Similarly, Quindlen recommends doing the kind of writing where you don’t posture for an audience. Just write the truth. Privately. For … Read More

“When people write reviews, they are really writing a kind of memoir – here’s what my experience was eating at this restaurant or getting my hair cut at this barbershop.”

February 29, 2024

Is this book a memoir? The title – The Anthropocene Reviewed and the subtitle Essays on a Human-Centered Planet — offer no clues. However, in the introduction, the author says that he wants to tell us stories about his life so that we can see how he … Read More

“In 1848 William and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple in Georgia, embarked on a five-thousand-mile journey of mutual self-emancipation across the world.”

February 21, 2024

How does a writer create suspense when the outcome of the real-life story is already known? This book excels at keeping readers at the edge of their seats. How? Woo did a “staggering amount” of research to learn the sensory details of the way things felt, smelled, … Read More

“There are those who believe they know – and those who hope they may yet know.”

February 12, 2024

Seven pages into the preface of his huge collection of poems, Carl Sandburg  tells us that he will not pontificate on the art of poetry, which is what famous writers often do in that section. Instead, he says “A poet explains for us what for him is … Read More

“I learned that writing a memoir is like figure skating: it looks effortless and beautiful from the outside. . .”

January 31, 2024

“… while in reality, you stretch thy groin so much that you nearly split yourself in half for the whole world to see.” The author, JVN, whose trademarks are joy and kindness, shares what happened after the first memoir was published. Some readers expected JVN to be … Read More

“There is a difference between wallowing and bearing witness.”

January 22, 2024

Lakin continues, “Think of yourself in the role of storyteller . . . instead of as the victim who has been wronged and deserves retribution or pity . . .” For all the memoirists who are reluctant to write about difficult episodes because they don’t want to … Read More

“Part of these essays probably are rooted in genuine recollections, but how, in the circumstances, can we trust anything that he [John Forster] says in them?”

January 12, 2024

But how much can we trust the new conclusions drawn by this author, writing 150 years after Dickens died? That’s the question readers need to consider. Newly digitized information is now available, and the author has a Ph.D. in English literature from Oxford University. I enjoyed this … Read More

Ten Years of Writing about Fiction Has Taught Me This

December 30, 2023

Fiction is the wildest form of writing. It attracts explorers, artists, and fighters. Their goals might be to punch a hole in the wall between the writer and the reader (Knausgaard), or tell us how the idea of  equality fell short (Whitehead), or … Read More

Ten Years of Writing about Poetry Has Taught Me This

December 22, 2023

Poetry is the most textured form of writing. It attracts artists who weave sounds and images with mystery. They may be cranky (T. S. Eliot) or homesick (Heaney) or humorous (Billy Collins). They may believe that poetry is an instrument of … Read More

Ten Years of Writing about Memoir Has Taught Me This

December 12, 2023

Memoir is the most entrepreneurial form of writing. It attracts inventors who are willing to take risks and use nontraditional skills and interests. Though their goal might be as simple as recording history, or telling stories, or finding meaning, their materials are original. They … Read More

“We get the Dialectic fairly well.”

November 29, 2023

Why would a poem written in 1940 be included in The Best American Poetry 2023?  W. H. Auden’s brilliant poem about contradictions wasn’t published during his lifetime because he questioned its value. Auden was a great poet who doubted his greatness. Even when he won awards, … Read More

“I’ve spent my whole life studying her . . . because I always want to do whatever I can in any given moment to make or keep Mom happy.”

November 20, 2023

What happens when a stand-up comedy routine becomes a memoir? In this case, it becomes a best-seller. This book started as a one-woman show about growing up trying to please a mother who was her best friend and controller of everything from showers to diet to … Read More