What to Write This Week(end)
Inspired by Joan Didion and a little town you've (probably) never heard of
Hello, friends. Because the “What to Write This Week” post, which usually goes out on Monday or Tuesday, is still sitting in my drafts folder half-finished (or, more optimistically, half-done), I offer you “What to Write This Weekend.”
Recently, while reading Joan Didion’s South and West: From a Notebook, I discovered that Didion, that great chronicler of the American West, had traveled through the small town of Dempolis, Alabama (my birthplace), during the year of my birth. This sent me on a trip through memory and identity, and led me to ponder my totally unscientific theory as to why so many writers are middle children. If you’d like, you can read the essay, Notes on a Birthplace by Way of Joan Didion, over at
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What to Write: Write about the place you were born. Whether you grew up there or only spent a short time there (my mother’s brief stop in Demopolis, just long enough to give birth, has long been a mystery to me), what is the image/sound/anecdote/moment that pulls you into that place?
Take if further: Use your birthplace as the entrance into an essay or Substack post. Then let the essay/story/post go where it will. If a book has been written about your birthplace (easy enough to find if you’re from New York or San Francisco or LA or Winesburg, Ohio, more challenging if you hail from somewhere less well-known), weave a quote or story from that book into your own essay. How does the book inform your understanding/perception of your birthplace?
And further: End in the place where you are now. What brought you there? What parallels, public or private, exist between the place where you have landed and the place where you began?
Now open for enrollment: My course Writing for Substack begins July 9. In this four-week class I walk writers through the process of setting up your Substack and growing your readership. Each week you will write new posts and receive feedback on your writing. Go here to learn more.