Writing Course, Day 4 Windows, Baudelaire (year-long practice with extra prompts). I find I really enjoy incorporating the prompts and the challenge of putting all the words into a cohesive thought – but quickly and with sudden inspiration. Does anyone else wonder at where these thoughts even came from as they spill out of you … Read More →
The Miracle of Braile Street It was a muggy summer evening in 1964, years before we could afford air conditioning in our little Detroit bungalow. We were entertaining my Aunt Ariel and Uncle Harry, who were visiting from out of town. In those days, no one in my small middle-class neighborhood had even dreamed of … Read More →
Rejection letters are no fun. A day after I received a polite email from American Literary Review Literary Awards telling me that my poem didn’t win their poetry contest, I discovered the results for the Fish Publishing Short Memoir prize were published. I found my memoir on the longlist (yay!) – out of 780 memoirs submitted in total, 197 … Read More →
The Batmobile by Katherine Billings Palmer I was a nervous child of a nervous mother, not a good combination. From my earliest memory, I worried, and there was so much fodder for my angst. What if my dog ran away? What if the teacher called on me in school? What if my uncle got so drunk … Read More →
I was very surprised and excited to find my name on the Fish Publishing shortlist for the Short Memoir Contest. This is the first writing contest I’ve entered in nearly 20 years, so this is quite a thrill for me. The short list has 81 entrants. The winner and nine runners-up will be published in the 2013 … Read More →
Back in college, when I first began to write, I entered contests. I was new to the idea that I COULD write, and one of my instructors advised me to enter the college essay contest. I won an honorable mention, was invited to a reading, and elicited a few chuckles from the audience with my … Read More →