About Me

Atlanta, Georgia, United States
My first book, "Invisible Sisters: A Memoir" has been named one of "Twenty Five Books All Georgians Should Read!" I would love to visit your bookclub, either in person (in the South) or through the magic of electronics. My writing has received a "Special Mention" for a 2008 Pushcart Prize. I have been honored with a residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany, CT., a Fellowship at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts in Rabun Gap, Georgia, and the 2009 Peter Taylor Nonfiction Fellowship at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Locally, I teach workshops in creative writing, memoir, and feature journalism, and am a member of the faculty of an art college, where I teach screenwriting. I hold an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte (N.C.) and a B.S. in Communication from Emerson College, in Boston. I used to work in television. I did not push the broom behind the elephant. Usually, I served as mahout - I drove the (allegorical) elephant. If he was SAG or AFTRA. Rock stars do not scare me.

Monday, January 26, 2009

How to Describe, or writing is a physical act.

How to describe the sound of a ripping sheet of paper? I didn't know. I couldn't get there. So, I sat in my studio and tore up sheets of paper.

Now I know better how to describe it (let's not get so specific that we quibble about pound weights and tensile strength.) So I wrote, and disappeared into the writing. And then I stopped, and looked around, and noticed that I have torn fragments of legal pad strewn on the floor.

Writing is a physical act.

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