I always forget to post here that my Gotham Writing Workshop called “Jumpstart Your Writing” begins on October 2. You can read all about it here. It’s an online workshop for writers who need to, as it says, jumpstart their writing.  There’s exercises, lectures, critiques.  What’s also fun about it is that writers from all over the world participate.  Email me if you have questions for me.

Also, the Pen on Fire Writers Salon will host novelists Susan Straight and Tatjana Soli on Sept. 18.  You can read more about it here.

And the show (Writers on Writing) as always, broadcasts Wednesday mornings at 9 a.m. PT on KUCI-FM 88.9.  Listen at iTunes college radio or at www.kuci.org (click on the upper right hand corner and listen on your computer or smart phone).  Podcasts of past shows are posted here and on writersonwriting.blogspot.com (the dedicated show blog).   Coming up this month and next are Laura Lippman, Rex Pickett (“Sideways” author), Cheryl Strayed, Jo-Ann Mapson, Arthur Plotnik, Ilie Ruby, D.T. Max and Claire Johns.

Chris Bohjalian, author of The Sandcastle Girls, and journalist and Christian Science Monitor book reviewer Randy Dotinga talk with me on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM 88.9 in Orange Co, CA and online at www.kuci.org and iTunes college radio. More at penonfire.blogspot.com.

Download audio.

(Broadcast date: July 29, 2012

This is a Voices on Writing feature I wrote for the June issue of The ASJA Monthly, which I edit. This is the unedited version. More Voices on Writing Q&As at www.asja.org; click on The ASJA Monthly.

Voices on Writing: Robin Hemley

Robin Hemley is the author of ten books of nonfiction and fiction and the winner of many awards including a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship, The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction from The Chicago Tribune, The Story Magazine Humor Prize, an Independent Press Book Award, two Pushcart Prizes and many others. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has been published in the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong, and he teaches creative writing workshops around the world. He has been widely anthologized and has published his work in such places as The New York Times, The Believer, The Huffington Post, Orion, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, New York Magazine, and literary magazines. The BBC is currently developing a feature film based on his book Invented Edenthat tells the story of a purported anthropological hoax in the Philippines. His third collection of short stories, Reply All, is forthcoming in 2012 from Indiana University Press (Break Away Books) and The University of Georgia Press recently published his book A Field Guide For Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, And Travel (reviewed by Steve Weinberg in this month’s What’s in Store column). He is a senior editor of The Iowa Review as well as the editor of a popular online journal, Defunct (Defunctmag.com) that features short essays on everything that’s had its day. He currently directs the Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa and is the founder and organizer of NonfictioNow, a biennal conference that will convene in November 2012 in Melbourne, Australia.

Continue reading →

Every so often I rant about how everyone should read poetry if they want their writing to move to the next level. So here’s a poem for you, one I just ran into today on Melanie’s blog, by Theodore Roethke.  I’ve loved this poem ever since I studied poetry in college. Do you read poetry–ever?  Favorite poem? Post a link if there is one.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.