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.
The book I want to review is The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch, but I haven’t finished it yet. I know I want to write a review on this ... Read more
Dear Premature Feedback, I knew the story wasn’t finished. It stank, in fact, in at least five places. The bones were there, but not the flesh. The ending dropped like ... Read more
Disregard the myth that the writing should be its own reward. You don’t have that kind of time. You’ve been working at writing since your teens and you have gotten ... Read more
Dear Petunia, I call you Petunia, though you are just an aspect of me. I call you this because the name reminds me of a girl from elementary school who ... Read more
You’ve heard of Freedom, right? Software you can pay for that shuts off your Internet for how ever many minutes of writing time you desire? I won’t lie. When I ... Read more
The dishes are done. The cats are napping. Quiet at last. I sit down to write. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! “What are you doing, Mommy?” my son asks between mouthfuls of ... Read more
I think we can agree that reading is essential. If you’re like me (and I’ll bet you are), certain books you read and the impact they had propelled you to ... Read more
Dear Indecision, How have I come to trust so much in the process that I haven’t written a new sentence in two weeks? I moved some around and deleted others. ... Read more
By room, I mean that mental space where in spite of distractions that come like insects on warm evenings you triumph in your daily desire to get words on the ... Read more