Memoir
Know When To Fold, a reblog
I found the lead to this story buried in the last paragraph. But reading through Allison Williams' thought process to get her to that point was a shared experience by most writers.
the Whirlwind Review posts “My Pink Book”
So delighted to have The Whirlwind Review feature my essay "My Pink Book." Sharing my words with you through this link: http://whirlwindreview.com/2016/09/19/nancy-chadwick-my-pink-book/#comment-489
i just want to write
I recently completed an online survey in answer to a request by one of those writer’s magazines. They wanted to know what I wanted to read in their magazine. It took only minutes to click my answers to their straightforward questions. But when I finished, I screamed, “I just want to write.” The purpose of the survey was to gain [...]
the magic of memoir
My essay is for all you memoir writers who speak to the conversation in your head as I have done when writing my memoir.
a writer’s lament
I seized an essay from my slush pile. I remember when I wrote the following; its history born from emotion. I was approaching the age of 40, not working full time and I was only a couple of drafts into my memoir when a critique of my manuscript told me fancy terms such as through-threads and theme, reflections and takeaways [...]
writing details
I implore the power of detail in my memoir writing. However, writing the details can be a distraction and a digression from the purpose of my words. Natalie Goldberg’s, Writing Down the Bones says, “We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips . . [...]
the bathroom
The middle of the upstairs hall in the house on Carlisle Avenue was the kids’ bathroom where a bathtub paralleled one wall and a toilet filled the remaining small boxlike space. A beige Formica counter ran the length of the entire opposite wall with muddy blue double sinks planted in the long flat surface. And then there was the small [...]
home
Home. A physical place or a state of being. It can even have emotions. Linear or ever-changing, it may travel like a river with ebbs and flows. Or maybe it is elusive. My memoir read like an autobiography. I was clear as I spewed vivid memories and recalled markers attained as my decades rolled on by. But I wasn’t clear [...]
the elusion of Mary Karr
What is it about Mary Karr’s writing? Her prolific self (award-winning poet, best-selling memoirist) and compelling character studies appear to infiltrate the memoir reaches of the genre. She’s on a professional writing level, elevated and honed, where I could and never would reach in my writing. Mary’s world would never rendezvous with mine. My memoir is the antithesis of her [...]
white lines on blueprint
On a Saturday morning a few years ago, I responded to a hankering. I needed to free a hall closet in my house of clutter. I understood what faced me – the messiest offender found in three files buckets – as soon as I opened the door. I spied a particular grey one packed askew with folders and paper and [...]