98% of the time I think my co-workers at Minerva Rising are brilliant. But then there’s that 2% when they ask me to write about Keeping Your Head On Straight During and After AWP. I am the last person who can tell anybody anything about keeping her head on...
The coolest experience as a reader is when the images on the page come alive, leaving an indelible mark on your mind. You are forever changed. The feeling is intensified when it relates to something that you have personally experienced. It is as if the writer has...
Today was the day to shovel sky clean snow clean breath sharp to our marrow. We know we will be all right really we will but I remember the story our mother told. The farmer was away when the blizzard struck, the first that winter of many blizzards that buried his...
My first AWP…all I can say is wow (and maybe whew)! As the non-writer of Minerva Rising I had no idea what I was in for–the number of writers out there in the world, the variety of writing topics to fill so many panels, the bravery of reading your work to...
Like many people, I was shocked by the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. In part, I’m sure because we happen to live in the same neighborhood. His son once played in the same Little League as my boy. Not on the same team or the same division, but I’d steal glances at...
Reviewed by Lindsey Grudnicki In her memoir Summoning the Mountains, Amy Allen takes the reader by the hand, throws a pack onto her shoulders, and brings her along for quite a journey. Determined to fulfill her dream of hiking the entirety of the Appalachian...
Recent research has shown that the more you smile, the more you smile. Muscle memory creates pathways and patterns in the 200+ facial muscles summoned up every single time you smile. And chemicals react to those muscles, eliciting feelings of happiness that would...
We writers who work full-time at non-writing jobs face countless obstacles in our quest for a few hours of peace and quiet. I’ve come to believe that being an English teacher may be one of the worst jobs of all, as my struggle to read and assess stacks of...
In my family lore, there’s a story that my maternal grandfather wanted to marry my grandmother in an impulsive romantic gesture before he left for Hawaii to start his World War II tour. My ever-practical grandmother refused to marry him until he returned from the war...
We’re thrilled to introduce the winners of the 2014 Daring To Be The Woman I Am Chapbook Contest: Laura Cherry for her poetry collection Two White Beds: Millie and Sam Judith Arcana for her long short story Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture Their chapbooks...
