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.
Re-read old stories you wrote years ago and consider fixing them. Organize all the pens on your desk by color or type of pen and then fan them out into ... Read more
Dear FOBO, I just learned you existed yesterday. Well, I learned you are a thing with a name, which also means there must be countless other people out there who ... Read more
Want to sabotage your writing time? Have I got some ideas for you. 1. Do anything else “real quick”. This includes checking email, social media accounts, doing a little food ... Read more
I often tell people that part of why I teach is so I can spend my summer writing. I don’t mean to lie. Before I became a teacher, I thought ... Read more
How is the writing going? Earlier this year, my best writing buddy and I were struggling to make time to write. Both teachers, the school year—and it was clearly going ... Read more
Still here! Still doing the work! Because I took on some extra responsibility in my doing job, it’s been enough this school year to find time to write, let alone ... Read more
What? The theme of this blog is how to make time. In spite of all of the obligations we face as writers who also work full time, raise children, love ... Read more
I was a spider muse? A dream catcher? A story weaver? I can’t recall, actually. I know it was Halloween and I had invented my own costume. The idea came ... Read more
In second–maybe third–grade, I had a Strawberry Shortcake watch with a red leather strap. It was the first accessory I ever coveted. It was a wind-up watch, not a digital, ... Read more
If you told me one day I’d be looking for a file on my computer I’d misplaced–a novel draft–and, unable to find it, I would shrug and think well I ... Read more