In nature and in architecture, we find beauty in balance and symmetry. And so it is in writing. There is a lot of talk about story structure. Why do we teach story structure?  A story is like a bridge with a beginning, middle, and end. When you get t...

Take any of the trinkets crowding your shelf and inspect it in the daylight from your window. What makes you hold on to this item? Imagine a visitor asking about a chipped souvenir with raised eyebrows. Taking the souvenir from their hands, setting i...

A writer doesn’t know how their words land until they share their writing with a reader. They never know what’s missing in their writing if they never hear their work out loud. To trust the reader with our words, we need to have confidence in ourselv...

Once, a therapist told me that it didn’t matter that I had said something with the best intention. What mattered was how it was perceived. I resented that idea. Why was it my responsibility if someone was taking what I had said the wrong way? When I...