Author Archives: Barbara

For this exercise, we each made a list, quickly, of things we are grateful for, trying not to censor ourselves but to write whatever came to mind. We then chose three to share with the group. (If we liked something … Continue reading →

A new year, a new session of workshops. Seems like a good time to revive this blog, which languished throughout the fall. In the workshops I lead, as in all workshops based on the Amherst Writers & Artists method, we … Continue reading →

Last week’s prompt was to write from random given words. The challenge of weaving three seemingly-unconnected words into one piece of writing is a good warm-up, and fun, but it can also lead a writer in directions she or he … Continue reading →

Use one or more of the following in a piece of writing: popcorn, bathroom, mechanic. *** The smell of burnt popcorn flooded out of the house when Janice Lee opened the front door. “Good God Almighty, Dwayne,” she yelled, “what … Continue reading →

For a recent workshop session, I borrowed parts of the opening lines from several of the essays in David Sedaris‘ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (Little, Brown 2004). “Chicken in the Henhouse begins, “It was one of those … Continue reading →

In a Sunset Coast Writers workshop, I invite writers to use the prompts in whatever way they wish–they can even ignore the prompt if there’s something else they want or need to write, and I do the same. Sometimes, however, for whatever reason–my mood, the temperature of the room, the phase of the moon–absolutely nothing comes to mind. When that happens, I will write about not writing, or about how stupid the exercise is and whose idea was it, anyway? (Mine.) I encourage the other writers to do the same thing. (Sometimes the prompts really are stupid, or fall into the category of “tried it, hated it, never gonna do it again.”) Continue reading →

The day my mother died, it was the sound of her not-breathing that most struck me. With each breath, her chest rose, air moving through her throat, raspy, painful, like wind through wooden blinds. So much work. The air gargled its way out of her lungs through the mouth she could no longer close. Then, silence. Continue reading →

The prompt: From imagination or memory or both, write about something you or a character has given up. I encourage writers to use the prompt in whatever way they would like, and I allow myself that latitude, too. What follows is just as I wrote it during a workshop. Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a prompt based on George Ella Lyon’s poem, “Where I’m From,” in which I invited writers to begin their writing with the words “I am from….” As an alternative, I suggested beginning with “Where I come from…” instead. Someone muttered, “Same thing,” but really, it’s not. There’s a slight attitudinal shift in the second opening, and like travelers who start with their shoulders touching but bodies and feet slightly angled away from each other, the journey can be completely different. Continue reading →