A place for those who find and create meaning through words
Creativity inspires creativity, and Alexandria, Virginia’s Torpedo Factory churns out inspiration as much as it does creative expressions of the human spirit. This artists’ cooperative-- three floors of studios, galleries, and installations housed in a repurposed torpedo production facility-- inspires unique ideas, new perspectives, and encourages artists of all mediums who pass through its doors. ... Continue Reading →
Memory cards and stacks of scribbles from our trip to Niagra Falls continue to remind me collecting raw material is only the beginning of a time-intensive process. This is not, necessarily, a bad thing. Travel's initial thrills always inspire and increase my productivity, yet time's passage tempers the eye and helps me disregard cliched thoughts recorded feverishly through star-struck eyes.... Continue Reading →
Nineteen, a freshman in a sophomore-level education class, my first week of college, and my prof assigned an article summary on an education-based topic of our choosing-- one line of directions in a syllabus and a point value. Being nineteen and a freshman loving to write, I read this as an invitation to compose an... Continue Reading →
Dissecting a piece of microfiction during a short story session of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference provided a revealing blueprint for tight, character-driven stories. Our facilitator, Carla Spataro, used author Bob Thurber’s writing exercise “Anatomy of a MicroFiction” to illustrate how focused character development and deliberate action can evoke emotional reactions. Spataro prompted us to use... Continue Reading →
My introduction to McCarthy’s work did not go well. Misunderstanding his style and my ignorance of literary fiction caused me to consider The Road a book to finish simply because I had begun it. Run-on sentence structures and the lack of dialogue punctuation switched-on the teacher portions of my brain, and each unconventional writing feature... Continue Reading →
Sometimes you are at just the right spot, at the right time, and with the right light to capture an image with enough detail, character, and emotion to inspire your writing. I hope these photos and their brief descriptions help to spark your creativity and can serve as writing exercises or seeds for much greater... Continue Reading →
Sometimes you are at just the right spot, at the right time, and with the right light to capture an image with enough detail, character, and emotion to inspire your writing. I hope these photos and their brief descriptions help to spark your creativity and can serve as writing exercises or seeds for much greater... Continue Reading →
Success as a writer, even if defined as simply "getting my words out there," often requires a business mindset and strategy. A Word document entitled “Published Works” consisting of nothing more than contact information began my slow acceptance of a business mentality 10 years ago. “Published Works” remained blank for what seemed an eternity, but,... Continue Reading →
I drove three hours recently to crab in the Chesapeake Bay, was rained upon, caught one crab, and drove three hours home. This time could have been spent cranking out a couple thousand words or conducting a short story overhaul, but the experiences of being in the marsh, in the rain, tasting a hint of... Continue Reading →
The vision of a lone writer, pen poised over fine vellum in a room of dark wood and poring over prose in seclusion has faded into legend. If this romanticized view of writing had persisted into our generation, our profession would have died. An overarching theme of The 2012 Philadelphia Writer’s Conference encouraged writers to... Continue Reading →
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