A common mistake when trying to create empathy in the reader - @allisonkwilliams.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/c... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #writingtips #writinglife #skywriters

"Sing and do not stop. March and do not stop. Work and do not stop. Write your story across the sky and don't despair because despair is the most powerful weapon of the dominant." ~ Luis Alberto Urrea / @urrealism.bsky.social

"If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive." ~ Barry Lopez

Someone once told me that every writer has a subject that underlies everything they write. It can be love or death, betrayal or belonging, home or hope or exile. I choose to think my subject is love, and most specifically love for the glittering world of non-human life around us ~ Helen Macdonald

The fine art of perhapsing - essential sometimes for memoirists, also useful for novelists. @allisonkwilliams.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/r... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #writingtips #memoir #writinglife #skywriters

"The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise." ~ Julia Cameron

"Listen to what makes your hair stand on end, your heart melt, and your eyes go wide, what stops you in your tracks and makes you want to live, wherever it comes from, and hope that your writing can do all those things for other people." ~ Rebecca Solnit / @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

Memoirists are often advised to write once they are healed and have perspective, but sometimes that dilutes the power. (I'm currently having this same discussion with a client!) @mollyakin.bsky.social @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/18/f... #writingcommunity #skywriters

"Write with a certain amount of hopelessness. It's better to be shocked by success than by failure." ~ Alexander Chee / @alexanderchee.bsky.social

What does it mean to read like a writer? A library of posts to help you find your own way. @andreafirth.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/17/r... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #writinglife #creativewriting #writingtips #skywriters

"A writer is an explorer. She knows she wants to get somewhere, but she doesn’t know if the somewhere even exists yet. It is still to be created. Don’t sit around looking inward... You have to propel yourself outward, young writer." ~ Colum McCann

No answers here. No tips. Just a few raw - and funny - truths about getting your writing seen - Ravi Bhaskar at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/p... #writinglife #writingcommunity #authorlife #publishing #skywriters

"Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness." ~ Kurt Vonnegut [Artwork: "Tralfamadorian," By Kurt Vonnegut]

Today I have a piece up in the new issue Brevity @dintywmoore.bsky.social Thanks to all who have supported me in the last year as I’ve tried to recommit to writing.

Your grandfather will chase the protesting cook away when you waste five eggs by breaking the yolks. Then seven, eight, eleven. He will celebrate your two perfect eggs ... the best he’s ever had, he tells you brevitymag.com/current-issu... @dintywmoore.bsky.social @writingcommunity.bsky.social

Brevity literary magazine showcases essays by @stevenchurch.bsky.social, @marjiealonso.com. Richard Robbins, Toni Judnitch, Heather Shaw, @mollyakin.bsky.social , @jtwattles.bsky.social, Dana Wall, Heather Kindree Thomas, @suelick.bsky.social, Julie Hou, and Lori White. brevitymag.com

"...the rawest parts of ourselves are never tidy. They can make us uncomfortable. But that’s okay. That’s the point of putting truth on the page." ~ @rebeccamorrison.bsky.social

On telling the hardest truths in our writing - and why it's worthwhile. @rebeccamorrison.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/11/g... #writingcommunity #writinglife #authorlife #memoir #skywriters

“My favorite compliment that I got from a writer early on was, ‘you leave out all the right things.’” ~ Amy Hempel

"Seek approval from the one person you desperately want it from, and you're guaranteed not to get it." ~ David Sedaris

What does a story's beginning need to do? Inspiring words from @bethkephart.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/b... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #writinglife #authorlife #creativewriting #skywriters

"What you won’t say takes up space. Creates a block." ~ @leilachatti.bsky.social

What do aquatic apes have to do with remaining flexible in your writing? writingcraft.com/event/webina...

Memoir, essay, lyric or informational? Or just plain different. Learn how combining various nonfiction modes helps tell your story as best you can, using the most advantageous tools. with Dinty W. Moore, Next Week. writingcraft.com/event/webina...

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. ~ Martha Graham

Writing about personal trauma? How to protect yourself brevity.wordpress.com/2025/09/03/t... @mfraterrigo.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social #writinglife #writingcommunity #authorlife #memoir #womenwriters #skywriters

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Throw open new storytelling doorways and let in some air. brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/f...

Brevity is now open for submissions! 📣 We are currently reading personal essays of 750 words or fewer in any style or subgenre. Writers whose perspectives have been traditionally underrepresented in publishing are especially encouraged to submit! Guidelines: brevity.submittable.com/submit

Anything goes. @dintywmoore.bsky.social on the delight of hybrid memoir brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/f... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #writinglife #authorlife #memoir #skywriters

"If you find yourself stuck, if you find yourself discouraged, find yourself pushing a stubborn rock of unfinished sentences up an exasperating hill … well … we’ve all been there." brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/f...

"It's what we do with the empty that defines us. It's what we fill those spaces with that either rebuilds us or destroys us. " ~ @athenadixon.bsky.social

Tonight I am teaching a class in speculative nonfiction, and a new (to me) piece that I'm including is this perfect, devastating snippet of "what if" from Sarah Cedeño at @dintywmoore.bsky.social. You should read it. brevitymag.com/nonfiction/f...

"The best writing comes not when you want to say something but when you want to find something." ~ Andre Dubus III

"Writing is facing your deepest fears and all your failures, including how hard it is to write... When it totally sucks, pause, look out the window (there should always be a window) and say, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing." ~ @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe." ~ Gustave Flaubert

"My goal is to write every day. I say it is my ideal. I am careful not to pass judgment or create anxiety if I do not do it. No one lives up to his ideal. " ~ Natalie Goldberg

Reading the work of others: when might it help, when might it steer you wrong? @VickyBarret at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/20/a... #writingcommunity #writinglife #writingq #memoir #storytelling #authorlife #skywriters

"A brief essay, I learned, enlightens heretofore unseen worlds. As I wrote, I followed a path of words, words like stars flaming across the sky." An essay by Sue Silverman, author of SELECTED MISDEMEANORS, was featured in Brevity : bit.ly/41bsI6A @dintywmoore.bsky.social

"Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk." ~ Jane Kenyon

"It is okay to decide not to write about something. You are not more brave for suffering." ~ Carmen Maria Machado

'I write until I realise the significance.' Love this description of what, essentially, all artists are trying to do. @SueWilliamSilverman at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/f... #writingcommunity #womenwriters #writinglife #authorlife #skywriters

When a non-fiction book is also, deep down, your own memoir - @MarciaHeath at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/s... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #memoir #writinglife #authorlife #skywriters

In stories, whether fiction or non-fiction, we're not sharing the 'what'. We're sharing the 'why and how' - why and how something matters. Love this by @allisonkwilliams.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/m... #writingcommunity #writinglife #memoir #skywriters

When you don't know what to do with a piece of writing. @laurarink.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/s... #writingcommunity #womenwriters #writinglife #authorlife #skywriters

“I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Too young to teach memoir? Maybe not. @michellecantos at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/t... #writingcommunity #memoir #authorlife #writinglife #skywriters

Are you worried that your memoir needs a bigger story? Read this by @MaryMonoky @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/06/w... #writingcommunity #womenwriters #writinglife #authorlife #skywriters

What might make your trauma memoir stand out? @allisonkwilliams.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2025/08/05/d... #writingcommunity #memoir #authorlife #writinglife #skywriters