Blog
Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless forthcoming from University of Minnesota Press
My essay collection, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless, will be published on April 22, 2025. These twelve tales of discovery invite readers to experience nature mindfully in a time of uncertainty. More
How and Why to Write Parties
How depicting large gatherings in your fiction or nonfiction can illuminate character, advance plot, and enhance setting. More
Giving and Receiving Feedback
How to make the most of critiquing others' writing and getting your writing critiqued. More
Keys to Keeping On
How to urge yourself forward when writing feels hard, slow, and possibly pointless. More
How to Manage the Middle
How to transform a story's middle from monotonous to magical. More
How to Write Less
How to improve your writing through judicious--or even ruthless--cutting. More
On Endings
Ideas about creating satisfying endings for your stories, essays, memoirs, or novels. More
"So Near the Soil" published in The Georgia Review
My essay, "So Near the Soil," about farming ambitions and disillusionment, appears in the Winter 2023 issue of The Georgia Review. More
"Safer Than Childbirth" Honored with Pushcart Special Mention
My essay, "Safer Than Childbirth," published in the Spring 2022 issue of The American Scholar and republished in The Guardian in July 2022, is honored with a special mention in the anthology, Pushcart Prize XLVIII: Best of the Small Presses. More
A Guide to Greatness
If you can recognize great writing, you can create it. Thoughts on using a model text to improve our writing. More