In a time-starved world, it feels wonderful when we have the opportunity to really slow down and delve into something, whether it’s spending an afternoon reading for pleasure, or wandering the halls of an art museum, or lingering over a lunch that turns into cocktails with a friend. Oh dream on, when was the last time I did any of those things? Since starting grad school, “brief but wonderful” has become more important to me than ever!

I’m becoming an even bigger fan of flash memoir–that wonderful distillation of memories into their essence of emotional and factual truth–and more in love with the red pen of ruthless editing, as ably demonstrated in a blog post on Brevity.

Regarding flash memoir: I have a class starting in Madison next week through Wheelhouse. Two sessions, Tuesday November 14 and 21, 7-9pm at Union South. Description and registration link  on the Wheelhouse website, here. There’s parking under the building, so for a couple of cold winter evenings, it’s a good choice!

Regarding Brevity: I have recently discovered this flash-memoir online publication curated by the great Dinty W. Moore of Creative Nonfiction  (I’m referring to the magazine and writing center at University of Pittsburgh by that name). For a look at the editing process check out this recent guest post on “Attaining Brevity” by Allison K. Williams. She recommends an old-school process of printing out your draft and scissoring it up, then retyping, that reminds me of how my journalist parents taught me to write papers in high school. It worked then, and it still works.

So–if your world is as time-starved as mine,”go small” with me by taking a few minutes to read Allison’s post or a few evenings to work on writing flash memoir.

Sarah White