Storyteller | Copy Editor | Writer | Intellectual Property & Branding Professional
I’ve always been interested in the world around me; I’m naturally curious (likely to a fault). I’ve also always had a desire to contribute. This urge to contribute fuels my writing and is the reason I ski patrol in winter: to help others press “pause” on the harm they’ve already done. And this past weekend’s …
I wrote a post three years ago about resolving not to resolve. A bit cavalier but I really was desperately serious about attaining any resolutions I set. At the time, it wasn’t that I was hesitant to cast my goals into the wind for all to see, it was a fear of the inevitable inaction …
Our fiercely smart and impossibly sweet golden retriever, McGyver, lost his short battle with cancer 21 months ago. In the days leading up to his passing I left his side only when I could no longer fend off the sobs I'd been holding back. "Goldens are stoic" our vet had warned and, because of this, …
Los Angeles seems an unlikely spot responsible for rekindling my love of skiing, but it was in a tiny, temporary apartment a block south of Artesia Boulevard where I discovered Warren Miller’s buttery voice and found motivation in his unrestrained passion for winter.
It's a been almost a year since I attended the incredibly, amazing San Francisco Writers Conference and I'm still energized by the experience, the friends I made, and the work I'm doing to reach my publishing goals. While I'm not attending this year's version, I wanted to (re)share my day-after musings from last year. Feel free to …
Continue reading "Confessions of a San Francisco Writers Conference First-Timer"
Fat snowflakes swirl and fall around me in clusters. I feel like I’m moving through the center of a shaken snow globe. The effect is dizzying as I ski in the direction of my first wreck of the day (slang for an accident) towing an orange rescue toboggan behind me. In it are a backboard, …
Continue reading "My Stint as a Ski Patroller (and Thursday Night Offender)"
Our brain is hard-wired for story. Great first sentences drag me into an author's space and, word-by-word, propel me to the end. There are so many examples out there but the following reads this week reminded me of why I love great first sentences. My grandmother was a mountain. (From Carmen Maria Machado's long-form essay …
5 "Day-After" Reflections I just returned from my first writers conference, the four-day SFWC. As I mingled one last time in the gathering of more than 500 authors, writers, agents, editors, and publishing-types yesterday, I contrasted my pre- and post-conference self. I mean, like a memoir, the experience was transforming, and in atonement for last Wednesday's …
Continue reading "Confessions of a San Francisco Writers Conference First-Timer"
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ― Ernest Hemingway It occurred to me on a cloudy Wednesday morning that I needed to escape. The kind of getaway akin to being so engrossed in a story I can’t help but cheat and flip to the end to …
I was lucky enough to get assigned to write about real-life pet detective Annalisa Berns for this month's issue of O The Oprah Magazine. (Take a look at it here.) Ms. Berns has an enviable vocation!
Cathleen Calkins 