What Can't Be Taught

Being a writer, I write, but I also teach creative writing.  I teach a workshop once a month in a lovely bright room in a cafe in Princeton, New Jersey; and I teach once a week in a dim, goatish-smelling, basement cubbyhole in a prison in Bordentown, New Jersey.  Except for the setting, and perhaps…

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A City of Crumpled Paper

During my prison writing class this week, one of my students approached me and said he wanted to talk. Like all the men, he wears khaki scrubs and enormous khaki lace-up hiking boots (which seems a rather cruel joke).  Like most of the men, he towers above me.  I always forget how short I am…

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SHARPENING THE QUILL WORKSHOPS

I am thrilled to announce I’ve begun creative writing workshops in Princeton – last Saturday of every month! I invite you to join us. Although we’re just beginning. We are already a group of friendly, supportive writers — some just starting on the writer’s journey, others already well published.  Fiction, memoir, poetry, flash fiction, creative…

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The God of Small Things

“Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.” – William Zinsser A friend of mine is taking a writing class with William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well. I was surprised when she told me several of her classmates quit the class when Zinsser gently insisted on talking about the process of writing,…

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We don't do that here

Last week I was down in Trenton with an organization called People & Stories, a reading and discussion program that (according to their mission statement) “creates unique access to literature. Adults and young adults who have had limited opportunities to experience the power of literature work in small groups led by a trained coordinator. Participants…

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