Art and Empathy: Who Gets to Tell Your Story?
We all have the raw material to create. No one else knows your story better than you. What will you remember most about this time of the pandemic?
Recovering from Trauma: Finding the Words That Heal
What therapists and writers have to say on the power of listening and writing to help us heal from trauma. “All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.”—Isak Dinesen
Write Your Own Fairy Tale
Fairy tales are simple stories that can serve as guides to the archetypal patterns in our unconscious minds. Use your favorite to discover and write you own custom fairy tale.
Dreams and Our Need for Empathy and Imagination
How can we avoid the "failure of imagination" we ascribe to our inability to foresee an upcoming catastrophe. Could our dreams unlock the imagination and empathy we're missing?
Earth, Sky, Star, Moon: Bringing Nature Inside Yourself
Environments can increase or reduce our stress and anxiety. “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.” —E. O. Wilson
Four Principles of Survival My Characters Taught Me
What can fictional characters teach you about survival? I learned four principles of survival from the characters in my first novel, but only after I had finished writing.
Treating Patients or Creating Characters? Making the Choice
Dale Kushner, author of The Conditions of Love, recalls the time when she decided she must choose between becoming a Jungian analyst and a writer of fiction.
What Do We Really Want To Know About a Writer?
Dale Kushner, author of The Conditions of Love, follows up her popular "Five Best Questions to Ask a Writer" with four questions she'd like to ask herself.
Anne Frank and My Birth as a Writer
For a nine-year-old in New Jersey, the confessions of a 13-year-old German girl to her diary were life-changing.
How We Understand the World: Taking Sides on the Brain
When I was first married, my husband and I used to joke that together we had a complete brain.
Writer’s Block: Nine Helpful Tips to Get Going Again
I’ve recently had the privilege of teaching several writing workshops and working with a number of talented writers. Since I have never actually taken a fiction workshop, I’m always putting my workshops together out of issues I’ve faced and cures for writing ailments that have worked for me.
Five Remedies for Writer's Envy
A close friend you cherish, a relative, your partner—someone you love and care about—wins the award, gets the job or the raise you thought was in your pocket; charms the socks off the guy you’ve adored from afar, sails for a month-long vacation—attains exactly the goodies you’ve secretly coveted.
Mother's Day 2015: Struggling with Being a Mother and a Writer
As Mother’s Day 2015 approaches, I feel called to write about a subject I’ve lived intimately, a subject I’ve explored in The Conditions of Love and is now shaping my new novel Digging To China—the conflict many women feel between their creative and domestic selves.
Embracing Vulnerability
Vulnerability. Dr. Brenė Brown, a researcher and popular TED-talker who writes about shame and vulnerability, defines the V-word as “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.” I concur with her definition and also her conclusion that embracing vulnerability is crucial to living a passionate, creative life.
On Writing, Climbing, and Resilience
A number of years ago, I did something I thought I’d never do: I scaled a forty-foot inflatable climbing tower, jumped into a net, and was belayed down to earth. How did this happen? I was with my daughters, one of whom was on the Outward Bound team that had set up the towers on a cross-country bike tour to raise awareness for girls Outward Bound expeditions.
Dinner with friends
Writers are often asked where they get their ideas, and that’s a good damn question.
Chaos in the Beginning
Sitting down to write today, I have a thought: art begins in chaos.
