Write what is closest

The writing books advise us to write what we know. Bunk, mostly. What we know comes from what we learn, and I believe there's no better way to learn something than to write about it, taking apart the particular pieces of making a hot latte, or the many gifted moments in creating Shrimp Franchez, butterflied and battered in parmesean, eggs, butter and love.

We should all write about something that creeps as close as the cup to our lips or the fork to our face. Writing about the lump of ice in your chest when you hear your son is on an IV, because he's gone to the hospital. Write about the firey ivy that blooms all around your heart when your house is alight with laughter, dozens of people you know and love, enjoying each other in a party. Or about Soda Crackers, like Raymond Carver wrote in his poem of the same name. An alcoholic of many decades, when Carver finally sobered up and found his Happiness (the Tuesday entry), he wrote of soda crackers,

I never thought
I could go on like this
about soda crackers.
But I tell you
the clear sunshiny
days are here, at last.

Write what you know, I suppose, if you know it close. If you have learned something, or want to learn it, then it will be alive with your writing. The spirit you bring to the words will be like a watering can to thirsty flowers.

Get a manuscript into Writer's Digest

The 76th Annual Writer's Digest contest has a deadline coming up: May 15. There's still time to polish up that manuscript and offer it up. Somebody's got to win, and it might as well be you.

Lots of categories to enter in:

• Inspirational Writing (Spiritual/Religious)
• Memoirs/Personal Essay
• Magazine Feature Article
• Genre Short Story (Mystery, Romance, etc.)
• Mainstream/Literary Short Story
• Rhyming Poetry
• Non-rhyming Poetry
• Stage Play (submission by mail only)
• Television/Movie Script (submission by mail only)
• Children's/Young Adult Fiction

Poems are $10 per entry, and other manuscripts are $15. These are pretty reasonable entry fees for contests. Of course, Writer's Digest will get thousands of submissions. But if you're written your best, why not at least get it into an envelope.

See more details at the Writer's Digest contest Web page.

A new group of Amherst Writers & Artists leaders

Several times each year the network of trained Amherst Writers & Artists leaders grows larger. On Sunday another nine writers and workshop leaders earned their training certificates after five days of training at The Crossings in Austin, Texas.

I was fortunate to assist in the training of these fine writers, offering advice on technique, writing alongside them in practice leading sessions, and sharing my own experiences in my year-and-a-half of leading sessions at The Writer's Workshop. Texas gained three more leaders as a result of this training. The AWA affiliate network in the Lone Star State now numbers eight, with three in Austin alone!