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when did you first want to write?
When did you first feel the pull to write? Me, I was about 4. I “wrote” my first book by stapling construction paper together and squiggling lines on the pages inside. My grandmother, who took care of us most days, would sit at the counter writing (journal, letters), and my sister was a bookworm even…
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who would want to read about my life?
“I’d love to write about my life, but I don’t know if that would interest anybody.” “Who would want to read about my childhood / career / travels / divorce / etc?” When I lived in Brooklyn, one of my roommates taught math at City College. He taught the same class every semester: freshman-level calc.…
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how to write memoir without clear memories
“I want to write about my childhood, but I don’t remember all the details.” “How can I write my memoir if I don’t remember a lot of details about what happened?” I hear this a lot from my clients, and it’s a good question. How do you write about an event – and make it…
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the best writing tool
One of the best writing tools I have is this: Not writing. Let me explain: When I decided to write my first novel, I sublet my room in a crowded Brooklyn loft and moved to a barrier island in North Carolina for three months. Amazingly, my boss at the time gave me that time off,…
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how to start writing
“I want to write a book, but I don’t know where to start.” People tell me a lot, and I often feel excited when I hear it, because answering it is fun. As John Cage, the experimental composer, said, “Begin anywhere.” Literally. Just start writing. It can be the first page of Chapter 1, or…
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on “being a writer”
“I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I’m not a writer.” I hear this a lot. Maybe you’ve said it before. Hearing that always makes me smile because it reminds me of an inside joke my best friend and I have. Whenever we’re grocery shopping together, and one of us is pushing a cart,…
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on writing awe
When I was growing up, we had some relatives I’d see about once a year. Without fail, every year, they’d be shocked about how much I’d grown. “You’re in eighth grade already?!” they’d say, looking around for another adult to share this revelation with. “How is that possible? Just yesterday you were in diapers!” I’d…
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on finding “om”
Yesterday I went to a yoga class where we began and ended by chanting “Om.” The first one, after only five minutes of meditating, was dissonant. It sounded like everyone had picked their own pitch, totally ignoring everyone else. The final “om,” though, after 55 minutes of hatha yoga, was completely in tune. Every single…
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80s rock & an andean reverie
In 2022, three friends and I went to the Sacred Valley. We stayed in Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, and spent the week exploring the Andes, Andean towns, Macchu Picchu. I was in awe: these staggeringly sophisticated people had invented agricultural methods that produced more than half the food products the world eats…
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up, but not north
There’s a moment in the novel Flatland after the Square comes back from his foray into the 3D world — the land of Cubes — and he’s trying to remember what it was like. The memory fades, so he clings to the only phrase he can think of to describe it: “Up, but not north.”…
Kimberly Bunker, MFA 