When my novel, Qualities of Light, was published last fall, I celebrated as anyone would, enjoying the readings, book signings, and kudos fu...

Each book we write, each essay or story idea we decide to commit to the page, signals a kind of journey for the writer that is very personal...

After you spend hours, months, years on your book, after it's ready for publishing, after you get that amazing phone call that says, ...

When we begin writing our books, we feel an urgency to catch the reader up, bring them over the hurdles of history in our story. We have a l...

Writers need other writers.  I'm seeing this in action today, as my weekly book-writing class pairs off to exchange feedback on their st...

Scan any writers' magazine, browse any writers' website, and you read about Master of Fine Arts programs.  Are MFA programs all they...

I've been reading Amy Bloom's new book, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, a collection of interrelated short stories that form a sort...

I was in my forties when I experienced my first up-close-and-personal death.  Elderly relatives passed away when I was younger, but I was yo...

I first learned about short self-assignments from Natalie Goldberg's well-known Writing Down the Bones.  Goldberg introduced the concept...

Albert Camus said a wonderful thing about why we write or paint or dance or make music: "A person's life purpose is nothing more th...