Author Archives: mabujones

Amazement:  From maze Old English. Overwhelm, confound with sudden surprise or wonder. Stunned, dazed, bewildered. Stupefied, irrational, foolish. Wonderful. Astonished. Overwhelming wonder. A while ago my life contained enough difficulties to give me serious pause and feel weighed down. I … Continue reading →

A few weeks ago I had the thrill of watching and listening to a conversation between Ann Patchett and Louise Erdrich. Both women are formidable writers, and the conversation focused on Louise Erdrich’s latest book, The Sentence, but they are … Continue reading →

On October 3, 2021, I was invited to speak at the end of the Amherst Writers & Artists Professional Development Retreat. Specifically, I was asked to talk about an addition to the essential practices that constitute the AWA Method. Not … Continue reading →

Who are you talking to? It was the question I would get asked when I was small. So I learned not to talk out loud, but to keep my stories inside. Then I learned to write. But the thing is, … Continue reading →

For the past eight years I have taught a two-week, summer poetry class for high school students. Every summer I watched them interact, share jokes and music, the bolder ones including the quieter ones, the romantics entrancing the skeptics. Last … Continue reading →

I had the privilege of writing with a group of middle school students recently. As soon as the two leaders of the group began their Power Point presentation on plot, I knew I was going to learn something. According to … Continue reading →

When I wrote Maud & Addie I did not identify a particular audience or age range. I wrote out of the joy of keeping company with characters who asked good questions and tried to solve their own dilemmas. If they … Continue reading →

Two sisters arrived one afternoon, in the middle of an argument with each other. I didn’t know it then, but their argument was taking place on an island at the heart of their story. Around the same time that I … Continue reading →

When I was fairly new to falling headlong into creative writing, I complained one day to a group of more seasoned writers that I kept repeating the same scenes or stories. Many of those scenes and characters were based on … Continue reading →

We’ve been at home with ourselves for a long time now. Some of us have cleaned out that storage closet, some of us have established new exercise routines and some of us have learned to play the flute. Many of … Continue reading →