Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

For over three years, Abigail Green has been teaching alongside of me. She offers two levels of classes in essay-writing: Personal Essays that Get Published and Personal Essays that Get Published, Level Two.

You won’t be surprised to hear that Abby’s students don’t just write personal essays, they write personal essays that get published.

Abby has published more than 150 articles and essays in regional and national publications including American Baby, Baltimore Magazine, Bride’s, Health and Smithsonian.

I hear my students talking about what a great instructor Abby is all the time. But don’t take my word for it. Try out her level one class for yourself. The next one begins on August 24th. Students register by August 16th. You can thank me later!

In the meantime, I asked Abby some questions about one of her favorite topics—writing essays that get published.

CK: What is it about essay writing that keeps you coming back to the form?

Abigail Green: When you’re writing about your life and your experiences, you have an endless source of material. People often ask me where I get my ideas for essays and the answer is “all around me.” I never run out of ideas.

I also like writing essays because it helps me process things in a different way. E.M. Forster, I believe, said “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” That’s how I feel about writing essays.

I appreciate the creative outlet that essays provide. I am doing more corporate writing these days. While it pays the bills, it’s not as fun, which is why I continue to write personal essays.

CK: How long have you been writing essays for publication and what have you learned in the process?

Abigail Green: If you count op/eds as short personal essays, which I do, then the answer is since high school, when the local paper published my opinion piece about playing rock music at tennis tournaments. It was the ’80s, the era of Agassi and acid-washed jeans. I was against it, for the record.

Since then I’ve published all kinds of personal essays, from long literary pieces to health essays to humor. I’ve learned that absolutely any subject can be “essay-worthy” if it’s well written. Most essays I write, and most of my students’, are not timely or tied to news or trends in the way that reported articles are; they’re evergreen. For instance, you can publish an essay about your experience as a new mom even if your kid is 20.

CK: What are students most surprised to learn about essay writing, when they take your classes?

Abigail Green: That while essays are based in fact, you are “allowed” and even encouraged to shape the stories as you wish to make them interesting and meaningful. There’s no rule saying you have to write about events in chronological order or leave in every detail. Some of the best personal essays read like great fiction, only they’re true.

What kinds of growth have you seen in your own essay writing efforts and those of your students?

Abigail Green: In my own essays, I have seen them become less stiff and formal, more personal and creative. I attribute this largely to writing a personal blog for five years. Three 500-or-so word posts each week for five years is a LOT of writing. It’s allowed me to try new styles, generate material that later gets turned into essays, and get instant feedback from readers. I think blogging is a great practice for any writer.

As for my students, in my Level 2 class there’s an exercise where they write about the same anecdote from a “telling” perspective and a “showing” perspective. Many of them are used to writing in a certain style and not mixing things up. So it’s a thrill for some people to discover a new writing technique. It’s another tool to add to their repertoire.

When class is over, what strides are your students most proud of making?

Abigail Green: Most of them are thrilled to have at least two complete, polished essays (and cover letters) ready to send out for submission. We do a lot of revising and reslanting in class, and while essays are never truly “done,” by the end of class students have gained the confidence to send their essays out into the world. I’ve had several people get their work accepted during the class or very soon after.

Abby Green teaches Personal Essays that Get Published, Levels 1 and 2. A longtime freelance writer, her articles and essays have appeared in numerous regional and national publications. Her latest essay, “Taking a Page from My Own Book,” appears in the August 2011 issue of Skirt magazine. You can find out more about Abby on her web site, www.AbigailGreen.com, or her blog, www.AbbyOffTheRecord.com.

Kemari Howell

Hearty congratulations, Kemari!

I look forward to working with you in a few weeks.

Thanks to EVERYONE who applied! Choosing scholarship recipients is extremely difficult because I always receive many applications from worthy writers. And this time around was no exception.

Watch this blog, christinakatz.com and/or subscribe to The Prosperous Writer e-zine for all the details on future offers. I’m happy to be able to grant one scholarship for each of these classes each time I offer the class.

If you have not checked out my classes, you can learn more on the “Register” page. I am still accepting students for the August 24th Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class. But it will fill up, so don’t wait!

There are also several other classes being offered this time around including Pitching Practice, Micro-publishing for Mom Writers, and Personal Essays That Get Published.

Keep in mind, if you hope to participate in the Dream Team that runs January – May 2012, you will need to complete Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff prior the end of 2011.

Congratulations again, Kemari. I look forward to working with you!

[This post was going to be long but then I realized it would take too long to write for me to be productive today. So I decided to take my own advice and keep it short.]

Prioritize everything that is important, let the rest go.

Juggle as many projects you love as you can on an ongoing basis.

Advance each project enough to call it “good for today.”

Think instinctively and batch tasks or focus.

Tackle the top three priorities first each day.

Watch out for things you postpone.

Be unapologetically self-aware.

Check your boundaries.

Enjoy your work more than anyone.

When you feel fatigued, do something else.

Keep your blog posts short when you have other things to do. 😉

I was interviewed for Tweet Magazine recently by Desi Velikova.

Here’s a teaser…

Tell us what “success on Twitter” means to you?

I think success on Twitter is the same as success in life. It’s never the equivalent of how many followers you have. It’s the how much substance you offer. It’s the measure of how much of a unique individual you are. It’s how strongly you can stand in the stream of popular opinion and still express something contrary because it’s true for you. Success is being on Twitter when you want to be on Twitter and being off Twitter when you want or need to be off. It’s enjoying Twitter when you are on it, and not missing it when you are away. It’s enjoying Twitter to the fullest in as many ways as possible, and still being able to have a life outside of Twitter. It’s knowing that you would still be you and would still behave the same way even if Twitter did not exist. It’s seeing Twitter for the wonderful interpersonal communication tool that it is without deifying it or the people on it.

You can view the whole interview here.

Borders has sold me a lot of books over the years. But not as many as they used to lately.

Apparently I am not the only wayward customer.

I was especially enamored by their huge store on Michigan Avenue, right next to the Water Tower in downtown Chicago.

This was when I was a city girl. You know, back in the day.

I don’t remember what year the superstore opened. It wasn’t always there. Not when I arrived in 1988.

But once it did open, I hung out there an awful lot. Wandering the shelves. Cruising for books that called out to me.

This reminds me that it was in Borders on Michigan Avenue where I got the job lead from one of the cashiers that finally sprung me from the city I had lived in for nine years.

I went from Michigan Avenue, where I worked in the John Hancock Building, to the Sangre De Christo mountains of New Mexico on a train, taking only what I could carry.

But that’s another story for another day.

During the times I spent in Borders cruising books I was mostly dying to leave that city. My God, I was desperate to get out of there. Do you know that feeling? When it’s way past time to move on and you are still right where you don’t want to be? That was me then.

Borders was a respite—an escape from a place where I didn’t really want to be living and hadn’t wanted to be living for years.

But back to the books. There were books. There were lots of books—tons of them—spread out over multiple floors. I don’t remember if it was two floors or three. At that time in my life, I spent an awful lot of time in the basement of Borders where all of the self-help, creativity, and spirituality books were.

I would walk out of those revolving doors (I think it was revolving doors) with a stack of books, spending like $50-$75 bucks at a time.

I had a ton of astrology books back then. Like a whole shelf full. Today, only a few of my favorites are still with me. I have saved the best of my best and given away, donated, or traded in the rest.

Today, I spend what I used to spend at Borders at Amazon almost each month, probably not quite.

The closest bookstore is Borders at about twenty minutes away without traffic. I have never been as enamored with it as I was with that one on Michigan Avenue.

I think that Michigan Avenue store was special. It had an energy about it. A kind of magic.

Or maybe the magic was in me. I’m not sure. An awful lot of longing went on in me in that store and what I was longing for then…was really the life I have today.

Thanks, Borders. You did me a whole lot of good at a time when I really needed you.

Regardless what anyone says about you. You were good to me. And I appreciate it.

Do you have any Borders memories? What do you want to say to Borders? Good or bad, share your thoughts and ping this post if you want to share.

~ Photo by monsieur paradis

Summer is awesome. We are loving it around here, even with all of the mixed-up weather.

But there is no denying that my favorite time of year is back-to-school. I just love it.

And that’s why I get a little thrill thinking about the launch of the next round of classes and dream teams which are coming up soon. (Yay!)

I hope you can join Abby or me in taking a class or joining a Dream Team this fall.

We start early, so that we can fit in two waves of classes before Thanksgiving. We don’t even try to have classes over the holidays any more. (Besides, I’ll be launching my new book and I hope you can come to the online party on December 6th!)

I know it probably seems like back-to-school is still a ways off, but it will be here before we know it. So, even if you are lying on the beach or throwing the neighborhood’s biggest BBQ ever, now is the time to sign up for the classes or support groups that are going to help you get back in the groove once fall returns.

All of our offerings this fall are newly updated, so even repeat students will get a ton out of them:

Writing & Publishing The Short Stuff (Especially For Moms) LINK

Personal Essays That Get Published with Abigail Green LINK

Pitching Practice: Write Six Queries In Six Weeks LINK

Dream Team #1: Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff Article-writing Dream Team

Dream Team #2: Advanced Article-writing /Beginning Platform-building Dream Team

Dream Team #3: Advanced Article-writing & Advanced Platform-building Dream Team (Invitation Only–This Dream Team is already full)

Learn more about Dream Teams here LINK

We look forward to working with you. Enjoy the dog days!

So much of what is on the Internet is yada, yada.

But every once in awhile something makes you stop and say: “now THAT is cool.”

This is one of those things.

Erica Jong was a big literary influence on me when I was in my twenties.

Her first novel, Fear of Flying is NOT likely to make it onto the list of high school reading by women authors (if you’ve read the book you know what I’m talking about) that I am curating.

But if I were making a list of important college-level reading, this book would be right at the top. If you have not read the book, I suggest you do.

If you like it, then pic up a copy of Jong’s latest book, Sugar In My Bowl, Real Women Write About Real Sex, and then, if you dare, pen your own.

So, come on. Do you have a story to tell about the best sex you ever had?

If so, I dare you to write an essay about it and try to win this award for $1,000.00!

More info here. Deadline June 2012.

And P.S. If you need help with essay writing, check out Abigail Green’s upcoming class, Personal Essays That Get Published, which starts August 24th. More info here.

Well, folks who live in the Pacific Northwest, you are in luck. And anyone who wants to beat the heat and come to Seattle or Portland the first weekend in August is in double luck.

Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the return of the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association Conference and the Willamette Writers Conference.

There’s only one snag. They are both on the same weekend. I’m not sure who thought this was a good idea, but I’m going to cast my vote for restoring the conferences to two separate weekends next year. All in favor, say aye!

By now you’ve already made your selection so I am not caught on that particular hot seat (phew! that was close). Here’s a quick list of who you won’t want to miss at each conference.

PNWA: August 4 – 7th

Register Online Here

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW LOCATION

Don’t miss a chance to get your headshots from Mark Bennington

***Don’t miss an opportunity while you are PNWA to stop and chat with my friend, photographer Mark Bennington. Mark is a great guy and you will enjoy meeting him even if you don’t need a new headshot. (But chances are good that you do need a new headshot, right? I mean we all need a fresh one every couple years.) Mark is a total pro and he’s offering an outrageously low price for his services. If you swing by please be sure to tell him I sent you.***

And while we are on the topic of Mark. Check out this awesome photo book project that he’s working on about Bollywood actors in India (and America). He’s already got interest from a publisher in India and I bet he’ll have an agent and US publisher very soon.

Thursday:

6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Don’t miss “Self-promotion for the Introvert” with Lorraine Wild and Kim Kircher.

Friday:

8:30 a.m. Show up early to catch Writer’s Digest’s Chuck Sambuchino talk about “Pitch Perfect” (Chuck has a new book out, ask him about it!)

11 a.m.

Agent’s Forum: Listen with particular care to what my agent, Rita Rosenkranz is looking for because she’s awesome.

3:30

Catch Chuck Sambuchino again for a session on “Everything You Need to Know About Agents.” (Ask him after about his book.)

4:30

Be sure to attend the author book signing. Chatting with authors as they sign your books is always fun. (You can get Chuck’s books.)

11:30 a.m.

Don’t miss another chance to learn from my agent, Rita Rosenkranz. Her topic will be, “How to Write an Irresistible Nonfiction Book Proposal.”

Saturday:

8:30 a.m.

Sorry to keep asking you to show up early but you will want to catch Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada‘s preso on “13 Ways to Make Yourself Irresistible to any Agent or Editor”

10 a.m.

I’m a sucker for marketing and self-promotion topics and although I’ve not met Susan Wingate, we’ve corresponded. (I called her one time when her Facebook account got hacked.) Her session “Get on Board the Starship of Publishing” sounds interesting.

9 p.m.

Don’t miss the author autograph party! Fun, fun, fun! (And another chance to get Chuck’s books.)

Sunday:

10:30 a.m. I don’t know Bob Mayer personally but this workshop in “The Warrior Writer” sounds right up my alley. I’d check it out. (And you could sleep in a little after the big party the night before.)

• • •

Willamette Writer’s Conference: August 5-7th

Register Online Here

Be sure to swing by the Barnes & Noble Book Table and pick up copies of my books. They give back a percentage of profits to support Willamette Writers in supporting writers. Be sure to tell Page Jordan I sent you. 🙂

Also, if you plan to follow the conference on Twitter, then Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) is your guy to follow. He’ll be live-tweeting the entire conference and he’s darn good at it.

Thursday:

Don’t miss your chance starting at 7 p.m. (Get there early to sign up.)

Agent/Editor Pitch Practice (This is how I got the attention of Jane Friedman for my first book Writer Mama in 2005—at the Pitch Practice. Let those pitches rip, people!).

Friday:

8:30 a.m.

Definitely check out Sharlene Martin’s “Crazy Queries” workshop. Sounds fun. 🙂

10:30 a.m.

Ooo, I would not miss this panel on “E-media—E-books, Self-publishing, and Twitter” with Jane Friedman as of panelists. (Jane is one of the foremost thinkers on e-media and the future of publishing. I’d shadow her all conference if these are topics that interest you. Full disclosure: Jane has also been my editor and publisher. 🙂 )

For fiction folks, check out Laura Whitcomb’s “It’s Just So Crazy It Might Work.” Laura has spoken at my author series and she has some great tips and strategies, you won’t want to miss.

1:30 p.m.

Don’t miss “Blogging 101” with Jane Friedman. Have you seen her blog, her guest blogs? Her interviews? The woman is omni-present. Nuf said.

Ooo, fiction folks, don’t miss Hallie Ephron on “Plotting a Page-Turner.” Hallie is great. You will love her and everything she says.

I like Roseanne Parry and her topic, “Character & The Seven Deadly Sins,” sounds truly helpful for YA folks.

3:30 p.m.

Don’t miss Gigi Rosenberg’s “Fund Your Writing Projects,” if you are thinking you might ever want to seek funding for any of your writing projects.

Fiction folks will want to head straight on over to Hallie Ephron’s “Details to Make Or Break a Character.”

Children’s writers won’t want to miss Roseanne Parry’s “What Makes It A Children’s Novel?”

Saturday:

8:30 a.m.

I’d be interested in “Words & Pictures: Writing for Comics,” with Anina Bennett. I don’t know the presenter but the topic sure sounds interesting.

Ooo, have you seen Eric Witchey’s handouts? They are thi-ick! Fiction writers won’t want to miss them and him talk about “Mythic Power From Your Life.”

I don’t know Kim Cooper Findling, but this is a good kind of workshop for any nonfiction writer to attend, “Anatomy of a Magazine Article.”

If you are writing a picture book or thinking of writing one, definitely go to Addie Boswell’s “Picture Book Pacing & Poetry.”

10:30 a.m.

Nonfiction writers, I’d definitely check out Peter Bowerman’s session on “Taking The Reins Of Your Own Publishing Journey.” (Moms may want to check out my new e-mail class Micro-publishing for Mom Writers.)

Hallie Ephron’s “Mixing Internal & External Dialogue” sounds really interesting for fiction writers.

Leigh Anne Jasheway is funny, and this session looks to be both entertaining and useful. I’d check out “Comedy As A Nonfiction Tool.”

1:30 p.m.

Definitely do not miss “Three Models for Using Twitter to Grow Your Career,” with Jane Friedman. Why? This is why.

Fiction writers, don’t miss another chance to get one of Eric Witchey’s big, fat handouts (but don’t just pop in and ask for a handout b/c that’s not cool). His topic this time is “Partying Your Way To Publication.”

Ooo, fiction writers, tough call in this slot b/c Bob Dugoni’s session, “Getting Started And Staying Headed in the Right Direction,” sounds really good, too. I would not want to have to make this choice.

Kim Cooper Fielding tackles a topic that every writer wants to learn more about in “Engaging the Senses in Travel Writing.”

Addie Boswell’s “Illustration Techniques for Writers” sounds interesting for children’s book writers.

3:30 p.m.

Once again Peter Bowerman and I are on the same page (although, full disclosure, I’ve never read his work) with his “Build Your Own Writing Empire.”

Fiction writers, once again you have a terribly tough choice between Eric Witchey and “Ed Ace and the ABCs of Fiction” and Robert Dugoni, “You’ve Got the Power.”

Leigh Anne Jasheway’s creativity workshop, “How Thinking Like A Five Year Old Can Help You Become A More Creative Writer,” sounds fun, if you are feeling a bit information overloaded at this point of the conference.

Sunday:

8:30

I’d catch Monica Drake’s session, “What Can A Sentence Do?” Sounds interesting.

Also Robert Dugoni’s “Catching An Agent’s Attention,” is a must-learn topic.

And if you are writing YA, don’t miss Christine Fletcher’s “Talk To Me” session on voice. She’s great.

10:30

Gary Corbin is a fun guy and if you are interesting in staging any of your writing, I would definitely check out his “Get Your Story A Stage.”

I would be loathe to miss Jane Friedman’s, “Thinking Beyond the Book.” This is necessary medicine, writers, and I promise, it won’t hurt. 🙂

Oh, man. Another impossible choice for fiction writers. Bob Dugoni on “Playing God” or Bill Johnson on “Spirit of Storytelling.” Good luck!

See what Christine Fletcher has to say about plot in YA in her session, “Then What Happens?”

1:15

Don’t miss Jane Friedman talking about “Audience Development 101.” This goes for writers in all genres, not just nonfiction.

Fiction writers won’t want to miss Hallie Ephron’s “Fly High, Fly Low Revision” session. After all, so much of writing well is rewriting.

If you are interested at all in Playwriting, Cynthia Whitcomb is a always a great teacher.

3:00

Sage Cohen marries two topics she excels at poetry and productivity in “The Productive Poet.” You probably don’t have to be a working poet to get a lot out of this session.

This panel moderating by Ellen Urbani on writing critique groups sounds interesting, “How To Find Or Create Your Ideal Writers Critique Group.” If you are interested in this topic, you may also wish to check out Becky Levine’s book on the topic from Writer’s Digest, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide.

At this late point in the conference, “Improv Your Writing” with Gary Corbin sounds fun.

Children’s writers or anyone interested in Laura Ingalls Wilder should definitely check out, Pamela Smith Hill’s session, “Writing YA in Hard Times.”

• • •

The end. All the attendees collapse in a giant, brain-bursting heap. 🙂

This was a lot of information to cover, but I hope, if you are attending either conference, and I hope you WILL pick one and attend it, that this list is helpful and saves you some of that writer’s conference there-are-so-many-choices-that-my-head-is-spinning feeling.

Have a great time! Buy lots of books! And then put everything you learn into action!

Okay, so here’s the deal. If you visit your average American high school, you might think, since this is 2011 and not 1911, that you would find that about half of the literature being assigned as mandatory reading would be by women. Right?

I mean there is plenty of great literature out there by women. And women constitute half of the population. So it stands to reason that half of the books getting assigned on the high school level would be by women.

Right?

And sadly this is just not what is happening. And I think I have figured out what the problem is. The problem is the moms are not speaking up. We are not insisting and demanding that women writers get read at the high school level. We are not voicing our clear opinion that literature by women is just as important as literature written by men. We are not making it clear to our daughter’s and son’s teachers and administrators that we don’t just want this level of equality in the classroom, we think that it is way overdue.

There is no definitive list of women authors who are age-appropriate at the high school level, at least not one that I am aware of. So, in conversation with my husband, a high-school English teacher who has had to listen to me complain year-after-year about the lack of women being studied in his and other teachers’ classrooms, we came up with this plan.

I would post my opinion on my blog: my opinion that women writers deserve to be read at the high school level just as much as men writers, in case you missed it.

And I would solicit input from all of my intelligent women friends as to which books she be added to “The List.”

I’m not sure just yet what exactly I plan to do with “The List.” But I think the first step is to create the list and to share it with other concerned women and then take it from there.

So…which books belong on “The List” of women writers worthy of high school assigned reading your opinion?

I have some ideas. I’ll add my ideas in the comments below along with everyone’s ideas.

Go team! Let’s co-create a new high school reading list, starting right here, right now. Thanks for your input!

[Added: Yes! Let’s includes the names and authors of important short stories as well as books.]

[Added later: Let’s also include plays, poems, and anything literary enough to endure time that made an impact on you as a young woman.]

[Ooo, another juicy idea is to include well-written biographies of women writers. And I think it’s great to include memoirs with these suggestions so long as they are well written.]