Why We Write: Going Back to Where It Was
After finding him paging through her diary, a mother confronts the ethical and emotional struggles of writing about her son’s traumatic brain injury.
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After finding him paging through her diary, a mother confronts the ethical and emotional struggles of writing about her son’s traumatic brain injury.
While at a ten-day silent meditation retreat, a writer reluctantly puts away her pen, choosing instead to fully inhabit herself and her experience.
A writer learns that letting go of the need for perfectionism and allowing the creative impulse to guide the mind fluidly and freely can revitalize the practice of writing.
One author argues that talent is the least important part of becoming a writer.
Channeling some of our earliest memories, and specifically the physical objects that often exist at the center of such recollections, can prove to be a productive writing exercise—and might just open the floodgates to inspiration.
A number of writers—including Dickens, Thoreau, Woolf, and Wordsworth, to name a few—have turned to walking for inspiration. This essay explores the myriad benefits that ambulatory excercise can have on the creative life.
Poet Harryette Mullen explains how daily walks inspired her most recent collection, Urban Tumbleweed: Notes From a Tanka Diary (Graywolf Press, 2013), and shares a selection of poems from the book.
Character calls forth writer. Writer calls forth reader. It seems straightforward—but is it? Novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki explores the relationships embedded in every novel and work of fiction.
Publishers Weekly reports independent bookstores experienced a rise in sales over the holidays; editor Christian Wiman announced he is leaving his position at Poetry magazine; the Review Review offers an easy five-step guide to submitting your writing; and other news.
Contributing editor Frank Bures recalls a meeting with the late poet Paul Gruchow during his formative years, a memory that sparks a personal investigation to better understand the stories we tell ourselves in an unconcious attempt to make sense of our lives.