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Personal Essay vs Memoir

Constance Hale, author of the must-have guide to language Sin and Syntax and the forthcoming Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch, sent this description of the difference between personal essay and memoir to everyone at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. I found it so insightful, I asked her if I could share with you:

“Personal essay is […]

How to Write Kick-Ass Character Descriptions

I’m guilty of it, too: The description of a new character who has just entered your story as having “big brown eyes and frizzy black hair” or “ginger hair that cascaded down her shoulders and eyes the color of jade.” No matter how creative you get, describing a person according to his or her hair […]

Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women

This week I had the privilege of interviewing Ayesha Mattu, co-editor of the anthology Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women and Zahra Noorbakhsh, one of the contributors to the anthology, about Love, InshAllah and the success it has seen since it debuted in February of this year. After being featured in […]

Bisy Backson: The Unsung Value of Idle Time

Happy Independence Day! And congratulations to the winner of the How to be a Writer in the E-Age give-away, Sara Renae. Thank you to Anne Allen for a wonderful guest post last week and to everyone who took the time to comment. I am eager to read Anne’s book, and I encourage you to pick […]

Where to Get Photos For Your Blog

When I teach blogging and social media classes at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, students frequently ask me, “Where can I get art for my blog? Can I just google images and use those?” The answer is yes, you can, but no, you may not. Because any image you find on the Internet may be […]

Five Things I’ve Learned About Memoir Writing

1. Your protagonist (you) should be 80-90% sympathetic with only a few flaws.

I used to think that the more flawed a character was, the more people would be able to relate to him/her. I quickly learned that too many flaws make a character unlikable. Readers don’t want to read 200-300 pages about a […]

Do Not Disturb

I’m on a private writing retreat this week—private meaning just me, my laptop, a lot of Coke Zero, and my manuscript. Oh, and Siri. I use Siri to send text messages while driving more than anything else. I rarely ask her where I can find a yoga studio or a place to eat because […]

Author Interview: Melanie Gideon

Today, I am honored to share with you an interview with the bestselling author of The Slippery Year, Melanie Gideon. Gideon’s debut novel, Wife 22, is out TODAY, and the best way I can describe it is Bridget Jones for the Facebook generation. Gideon will be reading tonight at A Great Good Place for […]

A Perfect Eulogy

My friend Shanthi Sekaran, author of The Prayer Room, calls this piece Imperfect Eulogy. I disagree. I think it’s perfect. This piece was first published on Zyzzyva’s blog and is dedicated to Elmer Morrissey.

April 14, 2012. On the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s collision with an iceberg, the eight crew members of the Low […]

Ben Fountain: Author Interview

Today I had the pleasure to meet Ben Fountain, who came to lunch at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Ben’s first novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, debuted this month. His short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, won a PEN/Hemingway award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, a Whiting Writers […]

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