Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe.
She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook.
She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.
Productivity. Effectiveness. Organization. All things our culture places too much value on. I don’t have to tell you it has something to do with money. It’s why we’re now all ... Read more
Let me admit something. I’ve barely written a word, going on three weeks. I fixed the shifting tense in a chapter. I dashed out a couple of okay poems. Mostly, ... Read more
Feb 08, 2026 Every project teaches you how it wants to be written. That’s been my experience, anyway. Just like good books teach you how to read them. If you’re ... Read more
My reading goal this year was 75 books, an ambitious goal for me, the highest in memory, and I am very proud to report:I did it! Exceeded the goal by ... Read more
This post’s title comes from one of my favorite Auden poems, taken from a line that gets me every time I read it. Even if I’ve just read it. It’s ... Read more
This was originally written on my blogspot (yes, that dates it!) two days before my thirty-eighth birthday. It was part of a series of letters to ideas/objects that I’d like ... Read more
Originally posted (on blogspot!) in August 2011. Still sings. When you published your first book, an allegory on dot matrix pages filled with colored pencil illustrations, held together with yarn ... Read more
It’s a new moon today, and we’re in the last days of the eleventh month of 2025. A good time to stir up some dreams designed for you. Directions: This is ... Read more