Writing Story / Finding Poetry / Freeing Voice

July 15, 2008
 
The re-entry into writing a blog after so long is a little thorny. Along the road, here is a wonderful quote from Faulkner’s Light in August, in which Mrs. Hines, Joe Xmas’s grandma, muses after his death:
 
“It is because so much happens. Too much happens.”
 
Alfred Kazin mentions this in his essay, “The Past [...]

Dear Friends,
Get in on it! 
February 25, 2008 I will begin teaching an online class for Writers.com called Claiming Our Stories: Working with the Power of Autobiography and Autobiographical Fiction. There are not many places left, so if you have been fencesitting, jump in and sign up as soon as possible! I am very excited about it, and aim [...]

The Stories of Devil-girl is a novella which I recorded on a double CD set and released shortly before the war in Iraq broke out in 2003. It works at the crossroads of poetry and prose, and of autobiography and fiction, perhaps also of the brutal and the magical. I began writing it in 1989, [...]

September 27, 2007 
Dear Writers,
This may the be first in a series of posts on bad guys, on miserable, annoying, cruel and unusual, evil types. You know, all that stuff we like to believe we contain not even a speck of within ourselves.
In the good old days, a writer could name their characters something so that when [...]

Of course I have promised you “serious discussion” of issues of writing every couple of weeks, and in one way or another, I intend to fulfill this promise. Having just returned from 2 months out of the country, including about 5 weeks in Turkey, I am going to be “de-briefing” with you for a bit, [...]

For this first post, I’d like to address a question which comes up often in workshops and classes, and calls for a much longer response than this entry will be, a response from many voices: How does a writer develop authentic characters, and deepen characterization?
My intent for the suggested writing exploration below is that it [...]