"Success as a writer is easy. Be born brilliant, with flawless work habits, little need for sleep, and wealthy grandparents who just happen to own prestigious magazines and publishing houses." - Dinty W. Moore

Just signed up to attend this tomorrow! Who else is in?

Issue One is live and full of nerve! Featuring work by @emmabolden.bsky.social, @jacqdoyle.bsky.social, @williamfargason.bsky.social, @sonyahuber.bsky.social @mattkendrick.bsky.social, @gabemontesanti.bsky.social, @zachpowers.bsky.social and more! www.nervetowrite.com/issue-1

"Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons." — Robertson Davies

If your memoir has a mission and a cause, here's how to use that in promotion - @StephanieWeaver @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/30/t... #writingcommunity #authorcommunity #memoir #creativenonfiction

Gone on this day in 2012: the great Harry Crews. CJ’s 1st ever tribute was for Crews, w/ great grit incited by Crews + insights from his biographer Ted Geltner, Crews’ student Jay Atkinson, & Crews interviewers @dintywmoore.bsky.social & Tom Graves: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/uploads/5/8/...

"When you start working, everybody is in your studio——your friends, enemies, the art world, your own ideas——are all there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you're lucky, even you leave." ~ John Cage

The personal essay remains an ideal vehicle for satisfying the human urge to not just live year to year, but to capture a bit of our experience. And beyond that, the essay is flexible, fun, and fascinating. Join me next week? writingcraft.com/.../pleasure...

When you write about family: the fine line between honesty and revealing the private times of others. @lhertzel.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/23/p... #writingcommunity #authorlife #memoir #family

I'm always down for something written by @dintywmoore.bsky.social, especially his post today in the Brevity blog about essayists as the "cool kids."

Any opportunity to study with @dintywmoore.bsky.social is well worth the effort to make it happen! (taking this as a needed push to return to essay writing myself, too) #WritingCommunity

Essays are powerful springboards, they can get us through slow times, they shake up our thinking, and they may get you to the heart of your book faster. rather than slowing you down. And essays are fun. All the cool kids are writing them. _ brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/20/e...

"The mind fits the world and shapes it as a river fits and shapes its own banks." ~ Annie Dillard

I work with a lot of memoir clients and this is the arc they all go through. From pain to perspective by @SteveMathias at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/18/t... #writingcommunity #memoir #writinglife #writingtips

“That’s the Irish People all over - they treat a serious thing as a joke and a joke as a serious thing.” ~ Seán O'Casey

“The glory of art is that it can not only survive change, it can lead it.” ~ Robert Redford

Some notes and unexpected considerations when changing names in a memoir @sarahbchilders at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/13/c... #writingcommunity #writinglife #creativewriting #memoir

The Colorado Review is an excellent magazine and they are looking for creative nonfiction. @coloradoreview.bsky.social

"Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again." ~ Mary Oliver

"As a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude, your loneliness." ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Once upon a time @deborahsosin.bsky.social said: 'never'. So what changed her mind about #selfpublishing ? @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/11/f...

"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them." ~ James Baldwin

“Stories move in circles. They don’t go in straight lines. So it helps if you listen in circles. There are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and hard as finding your way home.” ~ Naomi Newman

"The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart." ~ Donald Barthelme

What treasures lie in your discarded writings? I'm going to try these exciting exercises with my notebooks. Thank you @kimpittaway.bsky.social @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/06/e... #writingcommunity #authorlife #writingtips

"Making art is not easy. It asks you to open yourself to the unknown, and that means you might discover something wildly unexpected. You might even discover your world is not what you thought it was." ~ Jeannine Ouellette / @jeannineouellette.bsky.social

“Stories can be our most reliable medicine.” ~ @annelamott.bsky.social

"Always try to write about others more than you write about yourself. It’s how a narrator looks at the world surrounding him or her, what and who they look at, that ultimately interests a reader." ~ Kim Dana Kupperman

“You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.” ~ Margaret Atwood

The journey to write your most difficult book - @lisarizzowriter.bsky.social @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/02/w... #writingcommunity #writinglife #memoir #creativenonfiction

"Every book is, at first, an unproven thing, an improbable fit, an act of heroics set against historical odds. Every book is nothing at all. Until we come along and write (or draw)." ~ Beth Kephart / @bethkephart.bsky.social

“Fishing with Pelicans: How to Hook a Publisher” in Brevity Blog. Inspiration while bird watching. brevity.wordpress.com/2026/02/27/f... #pelican #bird #writing #publishing #inspiration @dintywmoore.bsky.social

"Always assume the reader is at least as smart as you are." ~ Rick Bass

The cool folks at Chill Subs have made the Brevity team blush.

"Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

On the point of giving up with his memoir, @jasonprokowiew.bsky.social was rescued by his mentor. @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/02/25/h... #writinglife #memoir #creativenonfiction #authorlife

"I urge (my writing students) to follow what falls onto the page, wherever it goes. That’s what I do. Whatever rises to the surface is where I need to be, and where I need to go, whether I know it or not." ~ Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

"Once we are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly our options widen.... " ~ Julia Cameron

Writing for comfort or writing for truth? How one closing line makes a world of difference. @MansiBhatia at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/w... #writingcommunity #writinglife #creativewriting #creativenonfiction

"Writing is having a conversation with someone other than yourself. The first step in having a real conversation is to end the one you've been having all along." ~ David Whyte

Is it too soon to write your story? Brave post by @MoragWehrle at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/02/20/r... #writingq #writingcommunity #writinglife #memoir

"Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?"~Ann Patchett

When writing a memoir about family members there will be many truths. We can write only our own @judysandler.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/02/19/t... #writingcommunity #memoir #writinglife #writingtips

Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore will be reading and chatting next Monday at Duquesne University. He'd love to see you there.

“When you have rules like only beige or oatmeal, you’re limited to that palette. When you use all the different colors, there are no rules, there is no editor. It’s very freeing.” ~ Anado McLauchlin

How writing a book is a challenging swim of endurance, yet the water still beckons. @NancyPearson at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/d... #writingcommunity #writingtips #creativewriting

You change the world by being yourself. ~ Yoko Ono

"Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” ~ Maya Angelou