Author Archives: mabujones

Last week a storm snapped off the top of a 100-ft white pine and slammed it down behind my house, pinning the back door shut. Remarkably, nothing was damaged. I now have a giant octopus with 30-ft limbs sprawled across … Continue reading →

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 →