Mother’s Day is always hard for me: My mother died when I was 13. Over the years it has gotten easier– partly because I’ve had so many more years without her than with her, and partly because writing has helped me. (also therapy and my time facilitating groups at the Children’s Grief Center). Grief doesn’t … Read more
Do you ever get stuck in your writing? Or have the feeling your life is too boring to inspire your creativity? I think we’ve all been there, but much like the dreaded writer’s block, I don’t think we should let these negative ideas get too comfortable sticking around. We all have our off moments, but … Read more
Karen O’Reilly is a writer and human rights and humanitarian worker. She has worked as a human rights educator for Amnesty International, and in refugee protection and resettlement for the UN refugee agency in Uganda, the Central African Republic, Senegal, Guinea, Kenya and Jordan. In between UN deployments she writes expert witness reports for lawyers … Read more
Our featured writer for April is Cynthia Patton, an accomplished essayist and poet. Cynthia tackles very personal topics in her writing, and we are so honored that she wanted to share this beautiful work with our Plume community. We hope you enjoy our interview with her! Plume: When did you know you were a writer? … Read more
Hello, friends (a.k.a. Plumesters)! We hope that your transition from winter into spring is going well. Over here at Plume we’re busy with our day-to-day operations and with coming up with new ideas for how to foster a supportive writing community. Sometimes, though, it can be easy to forget to slow down a little and … Read more
So, you’ve written a book… If this is the case, first of all–congratulations! Writing a full-length manuscript in any genre is a daunting, all-consuming, audacious task. Be sure to treat yourself to a well-deserved reward.The act of sitting down and doing the thing–writing!–is in some ways the hardest part of being a writer. But then…what … Read more
This year Melanie and I had hoped to attend the largest conference for creative writers–the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) in Portland at the end of March. We wanted to promote Plume and we also wanted to hang with fellow writers, many of them colleagues from grad school who’ve gone on to other … Read more
The Chill Is On Is it winter where you are? Cold, dark, inhospitable? If so, we feel you! Of course, there are places much colder and darker than Albuquerque, New Mexico, but this winter we’ve had our fair share of snow, record cold temperatures, and cloudy days (and Albuquerque typically claims 300 sunny days per … Read more
The Life of a Writer Being a writer, at any stage of her career, is no easy task. You sit down and do the thing–write–and create something out of nothing. You put yourself out there and share your messy, early drafts with trusted friends and critique partners. You revise, revise, revise. You query, query, query. … Read more
My second year of my MFA program my advisor, Greg Martin, went on sabbatical and Michelle Otero joined the department as a visiting writer to teach the creative nonfiction workshop. She was super nice but I’d come to New Mexico for a REAL graduate school experience, which in my mind meant tough critique, no kid … Read more