Your Story Matters

A couple of weeks ago I began requesting blurbs for The Only Way Through Is Out, my memoir about coming out later in life—which meant emailing authors I didn't know at all or I knew only a little to a...

Everyone has a closet.

In her memoir The Family Outing, author Jessi Hempel writes: "The more I live in the world, the more I come to understand that everyone has a closet."

I agree.

Maybe your clo...

My yoga studio has a Century Club—you earn a prize once you reach 100 classes a year. One year, pre-pandemic, I practiced over 200 times! That meant showing up on my mat 5 x a week on average.

This f...

Monday morning I sent the final draft of THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS OUT to my editors at the University of Wisconsin Press!

And ever since, I've been sitting with all the feels.

I'm thrilled. Terrified...

After Thanksgiving Day, my fridge is always teeming with leftovers, which, in my opinion, is one of the best parts of the season!

Constructing the perfect meal—or bite—from what didn't get eaten in t...

Last week I wrote about how National Novel Writing Month 2012 (NANOWRIMO) changed my life.

It can change yours too!

No, I didn't write a novel or a memoir in 30 days—in fact I ended up with a tangle...

In 1978, I was a high school senior and an exchange student living in Knutsford England, and I wrote a personal essay for my hometown paper about my study abroad experience.

My first byline!

But it ...

You know the roller coaster I’m talking about right?

I wrote about how I felt riding the low point on the emotional roller coaster last week as the high from landing my book deal wore off and the wor...

You want to write, but you aren’t writing. You say tomorrow will be different, but it’s the same story, different day. There’s a battle going on inside you, and the wrong side is winning. There’s a cr...

Beginnings are important. Beginnings are hard.

Where to start your book? This is one of the most important—and hardest—decisions for a writer—particularly a memoir writer—to make.

My memoir, Graveya...