Tag: books
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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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on self-trust
In 2013 I won a major writing contest. The editors called to gush over my story. “Tell us about yourself,” said one. “You’re only 25 and you wrote this incredible story. Where did it come from?” I panicked. Any minute now, they were going to find me out. They’d notice I was not national-prize-winning material,…
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to reveal, or not to reveal?
“I don’t know whether I should write about my affair,” one of my memoir clients said recently. “Without it, the choices I made after don’t make sense. But I can’t imagine my ex-sister-in-law reading it…She might not forgive me.” This kind of dilemma comes up a lot with my memoir clients. They want to write…
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a sharpened stake
I used to think writing was a solitary act. I wrote alone, brainstormed alone, edited alone. Only on very rare occasion did I let it out into the sunlight, did I invite someone in. Partly that’s because I was shy. I didn’t think anyone would want to read what I wrote. And showing someone your…
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twenty cat-cows
“Let’s go into cat-cows,” my yoga teacher said last Monday. “We’re going to do twenty.” (Me, silently: That’s way too many cat-cows.) “Don’t go to your full range of motion at first,” she went on. “Start small, and let each one expand a little more.” I felt called out, trying to arch my back as…
Kimberly Bunker, MFA 