Tag: writing-community
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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?”…
Kimberly Bunker, MFA 