Author Archives: mabujones

This week was all about the Autumn leaves rattling and crashing in the air, swirling on the ground, scratching and unwilling to settle as they were swooped, shoved, tossed, flung, and rocketed. I was trying to rake. I was trying … Continue reading →

A trope is a repeated concept that appears throughout literature: an older husband with a young hot wife cheating on him. To write this story as a cliché would be every bodice ripper novel in the airport bookstore. So how … Continue reading →

You live in a dream world. For all the years of my childhood my mother’s words floated over my head. She wasn’t wrong. I consistently drifted out of my known world into surroundings full of imagined characters. Putting my shoes … Continue reading →

In writing workshops I often hear people say as they are about to read what they have just written: “I didn’t get to where I wanted to go.” They say it with a bit of frustration or bafflement. It’s a … Continue reading →

Does anyone write letters anymore? The question got me thinking and attending to what we actually do write to one another. But it also got me thinking about the difference between a conversation and a letter. I have a notepad … Continue reading →

Two friends of mine have run the Boston Marathon. One completed the 24.8-mile race in 2 hours 40 minutes and the other in 4 hours and 55 minutes. It would be easy to imagine the slower runner would be envious … Continue reading →

Teachers, editors, agents, and publishers all tell writers to find The Hook, better known as the first line of any piece of writing, to lure their readers into a story, a novel, a memoir, or a poem. What arrests and … Continue reading →

Writer’s look for stories. But just as often stories find us. And sometimes the stories wait within until we have the capacity to let them speak, whether we turn them into memoir or fiction or poem. The first morning of … Continue reading →

Here we are just entering the small touch of the new year’s light. And yet, the skies and our creative spirits can still hold gloom. It’s hard to believe in the spark of ideas when we feel closed in. So … Continue reading →

Critique: borrowed from French, borrowed from Latin critica, borrowed from Greek kritiké: discerning, capable of judging. What does it mean to be capable of judging the art of writing? In college I was given an assignment to choose a writer … Continue reading →