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Experience Required: Back to School
by Lisa Peet 1. “Who is that?” “That is … the world’s oldest living freshman, and the walking epitome of the decline of modern education.” —Dr. Philip Barbay, Back to School I find myself thinking of...
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The Vintage Years: How the Older Brain Both Facilitates and Benefits from...
by Francine Toder, Ph.D. Many decades ago, as a graduate student studying the aging brain, the sum of what I learned filled little more than a couple of handwritten notebook pages. At that time common...
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Experience Required: Growing the Roots
by Anne Korkeakivi My publishing career as a fiction writer bloomed after I turned forty. But my life as a fiction writer began long before then. Getting published is not all there is to being a...
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Experience Required: True, Truer, Truest
by Elizabeth Cohen 1. I was not young to be looking for love, and not young either to be trying my hand at a new genre, fiction. But I did both in my fifties. Or maybe they both came looking for me....
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BEST OF BLOOM: Failed Novels, and Other Sore Subjects
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on March 5, 2013 In light of the National Book Critics Circle Award...
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BEST OF BLOOM: Anna Keesey’s “Keyhole”
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on January 25, 2013. by Anna Keesey A few nights ago, while signing...
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BEST OF BLOOM: No Other Way Out
Throughout August we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on November 22, 2012. by Scott Sparling I lie about how long it...
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BEST OF BLOOM: Experience Required: The End of Love (Letters)
In August and September we are revisiting some of the “best of” Bloom from the past year. Following is an encore post, originally published on March 15, 2013. by Swati Khurana I love love letters. My...
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Experience Required: Does Publishing A Novel Change Your Life?
by Nichole Bernier My book’s launch party felt a little like a wedding—even with my five children racing around, jacked up on chocolate-dipped strawberries. The bash was in an old brownstone in Boston....
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Lost and Found in Alaska: How Stories Find Us
by Colleen Mondor In 1932 two men were involved in a fatal crevasse fall on Mt. McKinley. Allen Carpé and Theodore Koven were scientists and mountaineers taking part in the Cosmic Ray Expedition. Armed...
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See It Then, See It Now
by Dena Santoro A vagrant wanders empty ruins. Suddenly he’s wealthy. But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so...
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Back & Forth: Reflections on One Year of BLOOM
by Sonya Chung So here we are, one year later. It would be predictable and cliché to say how quickly the year has gone by; and of course it has, that’s the way of things nowadays. The forces of work...
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Woolf’s Solid Objects & Busch’s Shimmering Drop of Life: Reflections on the...
by Charlotte Zoë Walker When I was a child in Hayward California and had a long walk home from school every day, I had the idea of picking up bits of colored broken glass that I found along the road; I...
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EXPERIENCE REQUIRED: “Match Dot Comedy”
by Susannah B. Mintz The following is an adapted excerpt from Match Dot Comedy, a memoir recently released by Amazon. From author Susannah Mintz: “Match Dot Comedy” is a comedy of errors that explores...
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Getting Started, Keeping Going: Peter Ferry’s Tricks of the Trade
by Peter Ferry What do I do when I’m having trouble writing? Well, first of all, that seldom happens to me. I’m the equivalent of the chatty uncle or loquacious neighbor you avoid; I just won’t shut...
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Quilting Without a Pattern: On Making a First Novel
by Kim Church I don’t quilt. I don’t even sew. But I regularly watch a sewing show, which for me is like watching magic. The host of the show, Nancy, sometimes uses the word herself: “And then a little...
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EXPERIENCE REQUIRED: The Story and The Telling
by Shawn Vestal Inventing a story always requires inventing two stories: the story as told and the “real” one, in its chronological, linear procession. These stories shadow each other in the way of all...
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EXPERIENCE REQUIRED: “Up ‘Til Now”
by Lauren Francis-Sharma I was in line waiting to have a novel autographed by a famous author who had written her first critically acclaimed book at the ripe age of 25. She was brilliant, thoughtful,...
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Straight from the Cuckoo’s Nest
by Charles McNair Featured Bloomer Charles McNair writes about one of his major literary inspirations. Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn, Apple seed and apple thorn, Wire, briar, limber lock Three geese...
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Exile and Perseverance
by Elizabeth Huergo Experience cannot be communicated without bonds of silence, concealment, distance. —Georges Bataille I José Martí, Cuban...
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