Erika Writes: Goodbye Sidney Poitier I’m writing this with the movie To Sir With Love playing in the background. It’s one of my favorite Sidney Poitier films, and always good for a good cry–fitting it seems, upon hearing of the passing of Sidney Poitier. It’s hard to choose a favorite film–the first one I ever…
Author: Adam Katz
New Year’s Writing Resolutions: Avoiding Burnout
I managed to convince myself to take a week off from posting to the website, as a means of avoiding burnout. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. As much as I want to post every week, every day, even, to keep up consistent site traffic, I recognized that my energy is not unlimited. I…
It’s Caturday and We Have Questions
Big Cat and Little Cat drank a bit too much milk last night, so most of their queries today have been: “Where’s the aspirin?” But in the spirit of the New Year, they’d like to know if you have any New Year’s Resolutions concerning your writing? What are you planning to write in the New…
Watch/Listen/Read: New Year’s Edition
Erika Writes: I would love to be able to do a wrap up for the year, but to be honest, I haven’t kept track of enough of what I’ve watched, listened to or read this year. I’ll save that for next year, perhaps when there’s a full year of posts to reflect on. Looking Back…
Your New Year’s Writing Resolution
So you want to start writing. Maybe you’ve tried other New Year’s Resolutions in the past and they haven’t stuck–or they have! Maybe you’ve tried more health-related ones or career-related ones. A New Year’s Resolution to write more is a wonderful thing. Cynic that I am, I think it’s a nice idea to take stock…
Watch/Listen/Read
Erika Writes: Shakespeare, Sedaris, and Such This week did not start out with anything as remarkable as last week’s ugly crying. It actually began with a birthday celebration for one of my kids. Beyond that, I’ve been trying to keep myself distracted because I had expected to hear about something very important on Wednesday only…
The Third “Rule”: Writing Groups
Are There Really Only 2 Rules of Writing? The short answer is: Yes. The long answer is: Well… Shall we get into it? The reason we start with 2 rules of writing is that I want the word ‘rule’ to mean something. It’s not a helpful hint; it’s not a suggestion. If you do this,…
It’s Caturday and We Have Questions
Big Cat and Little Cat spend a lot of time asking the hard-hitting questions, like: “Do you think the view is better from Erika’s keyboard? Let’s wait to find out until she starts trying to proofread one of her poems.” Yup. When you’re a cat, everyday is Caturday and you have questions about everything. Well,…
Watch/Listen/Read
Welcome to this week’s Watch/Listen/Read post where Adam and I (and this week’s writers if they choose to,) share with you what we’ve been watching, listening to, and reading during the week. If you would like to write for us but are feeling uneasy about sending in a work of fiction, poetry, etc., contributing to…
Give Yourself Permission to Write
This is a topic that’s dear to my heart. People are likely to look at me (on paper) and think there’s no way I could be experiencing impostor syndrome about my writing. I’m over 450 manuscript pages into a novel. I finished and submitted a 300-page dissertation in 2019 and was granted the degree of…