Last year, my book was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. I was invited to a reading in downtown Denver. When I got there, I felt so overwhelmed and confused—surely, I thought, a mistake has been made. I'm not supposed to be here. These people are artists, and I'm...me. Art talk was thick and ...

Writing might seem abstract, but more often than not I think of it in terms of space. This works on a physical level—Where do I write? Is there room for it on my desk?—and on a metaphorical level as well. Making space for my writing is one of the great challenges of my life, and ...

Writer confession time: I write short. Woefully short. Maybe it's the years spent writing articles as a freelancer, working to deadline, cutting my own writing down, but in recent years I have picked up a bad habit. Where I used to cut millions of words as a fresh writer, I now find it challenging to get ...

It should come as no surprise that reading is a huge part of my writing process.  I'm a compulsive reader, so any word that comes around my eyes will get read at some point.  What surprises me is the breadth of work that helps me through my own writing.  I tend to approach nonfiction like ...

I'm deep in writing mode lately, which means that I slip off the radar socially.  The social media strategist and marketer in me is cringing, believe me. I don't know about you, but the real work of writing occurs under the surface for the most part, as things are thought through and sorted out. That's ...