About My Writing on Medium

Writer edition! In search of minimalism As I write this, I just off a somewhat unintentional full month off of Twitter and Instagram — without cheating! When I started, I didn’t really plan it out. I only knew I was very short on mental peace in a way that was affecting my ability to…

Thoughts for volatile times. I recently finished spending about nine days in residency with an MFA program I work for. I met the students I’ll be working with this semester, taught a couple of seminars, and ran student workshops. There were readings and talks and excitement for all the things…

It might be the most important tool you can develop as a novelist. I’m the kind of writer who needs a good editor. My early drafts of novels are far from the absolute masterworks you see before you when you read one of my finished books. In my unpolished versions…

It’s a legit way to become a writer. Once upon a time in the not so distant past, there was no such thing as a creative writing MFA program. It’s true! The rise of these programs started slowly in the mid-century and grew apace until the 1970s, then really exploded…

You are not a machine. I’m a professional writer. I’ve written ten traditionally-published books in the last fifteen years, and one self-published book. That seems like a lot. It is a lot! Yet I always feel like I should be doing more. So I’ve tried every hack and process and…

Who does it sound like? I was talking to a client the other day who struggles with perfectionism and how it can keep them from* getting writing done. They described a mean inner voice that tells them everything they write sucks. In a different conversation, they’d mentioned some details about…

And I’d do it again. A few years ago, I was on a writing retreat with some fellow authors — all traditionally published, like me — and we got to talking about the self-publishing world and how much it’s changed since we all started. There’s little I love more than…

An off-brand post about housing. An opinion from a regular person, not financial advice. If you’re fortunate and privileged enough to own* your dwelling in a place where the housing market is in crisis (i.e. almost everywhere in the U.S.), you’ve probably gotten texts like this: I get them once…

Maybe re-imagining time can help us through 2022 — I’ve been thinking a lot lately about time. It began when I started wondering how our cat experiences time. The cat and I have been in one state since mid-September, while my husband is working in another. When he comes home after being gone for weeks at a time, the…