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on how to start writing
“…and that’s my memoir idea. I’m so excited,” my friend C. said. “But…how do I start?” Ah, the age-old question. How do you start writing? My friends, here is the answer: ⚔️ First, you must register with the Secret Society of Real Writers. 🧬 This requires giving a DNA sample to see whether you have…
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on connection
When I first moved to Peru, I became obsessed with learning Spanish. I eavesdropped constantly. I was dying to understand, dying to know: What are people saying? About a month in, I was walking along the boardwalk in the tiny beach town where I lived. An older couple walked past me, hand in hand. The…
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on the failure of words
People sometimes ask me what it was like to live in the Amazon. I wish I could transport them there, just for a second. Or upload a snippet of virtual reality into their brain so they could experience it too. Because, like most places, it’s impossible to explain. You’d think that I, as a writer,…
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on changing
September 2005, South Bend, Indiana. I’m 17 years old, sitting in a class called Musicianship. Having declared myself a music major, I am now expected to do things like sight-sing melodies and sight-clap rhythms. (What is that, you ask? It’s when you have to read sheet music without an instrument. Alone, in front of the…
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on expansion
At midnight, the table went silent as we began eating our 12 grapes, one with each clang of the bell on TV. “Make a wish!” I’d been told. “Or rather twelve wishes. One for each grape.” I’m in Madrid with my boyfriend’s family, and it’s my first time eating grapes on New Year’s Eve. And…
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on learning self-trust
March 2017, 6:30pm. It’s pitch black and sleeting — spiky, gray slush flying through the air. I curse this oh-so-Rochester night as I drive to teach a novel-writing class. I’m used to weather like this. I grew up here, after all. But tonight, it almost brings me to tears. “I have to get out of…
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who are books for?
“A book is for the reader, not the writer.” Lately I’ve been hearing this idea a lot: that you should write a book based not on what you want to say, but on what the reader needs to hear. There’s truth in that. But the opposite is also true: At its core, a book is…
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on the unfamiliar
When I first moved to Iquitos, a city deep in the Peruvian Amazon, I felt farther from home than I’d ever been. Nothing was familiar. Motos screeched around corners—many with small children, many with women nursing babies. It was 100 degrees, but people stood on sidewalks grilling whole fish. Cumbia rhythms poured through windows. Yet…
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on discovery
One fall Saturday while visiting my parents in upstate New York, we went to the town’s famous annual shindig: the Hilton Apple Fest. We parked at a church nearby, and on the way back to the car, we passed what looked like overgrown brush. Until: “Is that okra?” I said, stepping off the path. “Where?”…
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on wonder
“Why is it important to preserve Kukama culture?” someone asked. “Because the plants don’t speak to us in Spanish,” answered Pascual. “They speak to us in Kukama.” * On Friday I got back from five days in the Amazon. (When I’m not writing, I volunteer with an NGO called Minga Peru. Usually that means meetings…
Kimberly Bunker, MFA 