The Writing Life

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 [...]

Toe River Arts Council promotes the arts in North Carolina’s Mitchell and Yancey counties and recently they visited my writing studio. “When you’re a writer and you’re in [...]

On May 15th and 16th I’m leading a conversation on the Right to Write with the International Women’s Writing Guild. In preparation, I wrote a guest post sharing my experience [...]

Why do my stories matter? When the icebergs are melting. When mass shootings are the new norm. When corruption has infiltrated our leadership. What possible good could come of sitting still, [...]

Thumbs up? You betchya! I’ve been in business for ten years, but sometimes people still don’t entirely realize I founded and direct this business. What is it? What does it do? Maximum [...]

  Backpacking off trail in Alaska, circa 2010. Recently, one of my monthly mentees shared a NYT Magazine article with me, summarizing the tradition around the agony of writing. The article [...]

Sometimes, it really is ALL about word choice. The esteemed Laurie Anderson on the difference between driving down “the” road, versus driving down “a” road–as an [...]

Recently, I critiqued a short story written by a potter. Our acquaintance first formed when I was a barista slinging espresso at Penland Coffeehouse and he was a studio potter headed for an [...]

Off to Washington D.C.! Brad, River, and I are headed northeast for our first family trip by plane this week, landing in D.C. to participate in the 2017 Association of Writers & Writing [...]

From 2010-2012, I spent 21 out of 36 months on the road, hopping from writing residency to writing residency, drafting Flashes of War. I didn’t know yet that I’d become a fiction [...]