Since I was young I have always imagined myself a writer. I have journals that date back to third grade. I have copies of my stories published in the elementary school paper. I wrote my first novel when I was 10. I have pages upon pages of loose-leaf papers covered with poems or stories in […]
As I write this blog post, I’m sitting, tired, in front of my laptop, thinking about residency and how soon it will be coming to an end—just in time for Christmas and the New Year. Reflecting back on this year with its ups and downs, I cannot help but feel a sense of blessing to […]
Last night over dinner, after a discussion with our ninth-grader about some challenges she’s grappling with in her personal life, our fifth-grader suddenly asked, “What’s your super power?” I glanced over to her smiling, mischievous face. One of our fifth-grader’s own super powers is the ability to bring levity to difficult moments. She flipped open […]
I gave a girl goose bumps today. She was blow-drying my hair, and she asked me what I did for a living. When I told her I teach memoir, personal essay, and blogging courses, she shivered. “I am very sensitive, and I have felt like I need to write down my feelings and tell my […]
This week’s post is by poet and guest blogger Adrian Ernesto Cepeda. Although some might disagree, in my mind, sports and poetry are synonymous. There was nothing like Magic Johnson making a behind-the-back bounce pass during the heyday of Lakers ‘Showtime’ or seeing David Beckham perfectly bend a free kick into a goal. As a writer, I […]
There are different reasons why people write. For some of us it is therapeutic, for others it is just for the pure love of shaping words and making them flow onto a page like a poem. For others it is about getting a message across or creating a magical place that only the imagination can […]
Back in September, in the midst of a submission deluge for our upcoming Winter/Spring issue (out next month), our fair blog posted a piece On The Importance of Following Submission Guidelines. I know you read it, because afterwards there were far fewer single-spaced, comic sans, 10-pt. font essays in our CNF pile. Still, quite a […]
Last night I woke up at 3:30 AM in a panic. “I’m never going to finish my memoir!” I thought. Toss, turn, fluff the pillow. “I’m never going make money as a writer.” Toss, kick, throw off the blanket. “I’m never going to be able to pay back my student loans.” Flip onto stomach, flip onto […]
When I travel I usually like to go into random stores and peruse through strange things I really don’t need. My top priority though is always to check out the local bookstores and see what goodies I can walk away with and I’m sure to check out the staff picks. Somehow I believe that if […]
I am a nighttime reader. I turn pages till my eyes glaze, my fingers lose their grip, and my sweetheart moves my book to his nightstand. I find it there under a ray of sun while dressing for work the next morning, no recollection of his kindness or the last two pages. Beside my bed […]
Here at Lunch Ticket, we pride ourselves on encouraging emerging writers. It’s part of our social justice mission: we’re looking for pieces that tell new stories, written by authors who are underrepresented in the professional literary world. If you submit to Lunch Ticket, you’ll receive a note that tells you how much we look forward to reading your […]
Maybe it is because it’s the middle of the semester for us MFAs or maybe it’s because the summer is ending and the fall equinox is about to begin and with anything new, change is inevitable. Whatever it is, it’s happening all around me and now it’s happened to me: stress, sickness, and bad moods […]
Sitting under a café umbrella recently, sipping iced tea with an MFA colleague, the conversation naturally, unsurprisingly, turned to writing. We’re both in our second semester of graduate school. As I’ve mentioned previously in this blog, I’m “Creative Nonfiction.” It’s a fact which never ceases to amuse my fiancé who takes it as an existential […]
Let’s face it: many of us were spaced out during grade school English classes. I know I was more concerned if I had pizza stuck in my braces after lunch than whether or not I knew what an “unclear antecedent” was. Now, we all have a Grammar Nazi in our lives. I’m talking about the […]
Sometimes it is hard to be bicultural. Add to the challenges if you marry someone else that is from a completely different part of the world. Recently my husband and I traveled to Costa Rica and it was difficult to explain to everyone we met where we were from. I can only imagine once […]
As a writer we are constantly looking for ways to describe things. We are always consumed with the inevitable questions of how phrases sound, if sentences flow, if we are getting to the point. Always trying to get good sentence that will get our readers intrigued, but there is the power of the senses. One […]
Michael Brown died on my birthday.∗ No peace. No justice. We have been here before: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Native Son By Richard Wright To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee Beloved By Toni Morrison And… Now What? To what do we turn […]
This one’s going to start out with some family folklore. Bear with me. When I was a wee little one, so the story goes, I sat in my crib with a secret smile but nary a hint to my parents of a new talent I was budding. Once left alone, door shut, no adults around […]
Last week I traveled from Los Angeles to Montana, and while I peered out the window watching the landscape change from state to state, I realized the journey was much like writing an essay. When I begin a new essay, my mind is a jumble. Things are moving this way and that way. I head […]
Hello, fellow scribblers! It’s been a while! We need to talk about titles. We had a grand total of 350 submissions for fiction for our last issue of Lunch Ticket. That means that I read 350 titles that mostly made me yawn. ****** Trigger Warning ****** I am using the following titles for educational purposes. […]
Last month just before residency at Antioch University I was paying my late fees at the public library’s website, when I came across the main page announcing New York Times Best Seller author/illustrator Yuyi Morales. Since I’m specializing in Writing for Young People, I got excited. When I saw that she was Latina, I got even […]
Years ago, when I first met the girls who are now my stepdaughters, and when we were still getting used to each other’s company, I invited them to call me by the nickname my family has always used: Ari. “Arielle” felt a little cumbersome for five-year-old Shiloh’s lisp, and too formal for nine-year-old Rose’s warm […]
On July 4th,1776, thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain and later formed the United States of America. Independence Day is now a federal holiday in the United States. Independence is a tricky state of being for it can be a good thing or a bad thing. Writing is an independent profession, but for many of us, […]
They say cardio is the first to go, which I suppose explains last evening’s huffing and puffing through my first run since the day before residency began. Normally I’m a runner—around 25 miles a week—but last night it was hard to tell. Each step on the asphalt was foreign. My lungs were weak. Despite what […]
Survivor (as in “Eye of the Tiger”) is to play a free show in Los Angeles later this summer. I stumbled upon this exciting news the other day while browsing Thrillist LA’s list of (they say) every free outdoor concert in LA. It was mid-afternoon, June gloom burned off, the sky clear blue, the asphalt […]
My favorite Boston bookstore—my singular favorite in a city purportedly abounding with more bookstores per square mile than any other—is like a reversed Narnia wardrobe. When I think of it, there’s a wide glowing window display and thirty minutes disappearing faster than a J.P. Licks frappe. Those thirty minutes would be, of course, window-browsing moments. […]
Lately I have been feeling a little sad, concerned about the future of San Francisco. I consider myself very lucky to live in a place that has always been considered a hot spot for the liberal, the arts, museums, and endless good coffee, teas, poetry, and music. After all Lawrence Ferlinghetti considers it his city. […]
A few months ago, I caught myself on a Saturday evening at the dining room table while the kidlets watched Season 2 of The Muppet Show in the adjoining living room. I had spent the entire day alternating between working on a new song that had emerged from some noodling on my guitar, and trying […]
You know those days, where you sit down to a blank page and everything is going right? Every sentence feels plucked down perfectly from the ether—those writers that you thought were bullshitting when they said: “Oh, the story came to me from somewhere else, as though it were a gift—I was just the medium,” […]
Creating superheroes, one decline at a time! Silver linings, right? Recently, this article by Liz Kay has been making the rounds of the internet—and for good reason, it’s a very thoughtful article that really helps a working writer frame the declines they’ll inevitably receive and put them in perspective. We believe in transparency at […]
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