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Maybe it had more to do with being alone, with being completely immersed in a world I discovered between the pages of a book. Or maybe it was the fact that, at the end of whatever book I held in [...]

  “I had serious fun with this prompt! I haven’t felt that in a while. I was drawn to keep at my draft and would not have written it if not for the habits of mind you are trying to encourage [...]

I’ve been conducting informal research amongst Maximum Impact’s private students, writers I meet at Interlochen Center for the Arts, and fellow creatives whose work I admire. More than anything [...]

For many years, I’ve been teaching from an accountability soapbox. Here’s what I wish every writer could understand: Accountability for writers doesn’t have to be  about harsh, [...]

I recently heard author Patricia Ann McNair deliver an excellent craft talk (at this event), in which she detailed the benefits of distraction. Sure, it’s one thing to check your email when you [...]

During a craft lecture at my first residency for Pacific University’s low-res MFA program, a fiction author took to the podium and announced: “You are responsible for what you don’t read.” He [...]

The title for this post is quoted from an article written by Lauren Smiley for theverge.com. As my son River gets closer and closer to his second birthday (this coming November), there’s a big [...]

I used to be a big fan of taking my time. I loved free writing morning pages by hand in my journal, then reading a few stories by a favorite author, then thumbing through old story drafts before [...]