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.
When I came across the description of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert as a “seminal work of realism”, I was a little surprised. It’s true I hadn’t finished cooking my ... Read more
San Francisco has a reputation for being a writer’s city, as the home of the Beat Generation and many more writers now and over the years. Before traveling there this ... Read more
Alice Munro’s Runaway consists of eight stories, all longer, all complex and compelling. Complexity is the point I’d like to focus on here. You see, Munro gives the reader abundant ... Read more
I was finishing up the last of the stories in The Stories of John Cheever the same week that I was to attend court to see a judge convert my ... Read more
Carson McCuller’s The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter is bleak, suggesting that no matter how strong the desire for a love that is recognized by both individuals in a relationship, ... Read more
One of the writers in my book group suggested The Hours by Michael Cunningham as our book for February. He’d read the book and admired its craft. Also, he is ... Read more
Every year for the last five years, I’ve written a poem to celebrate my birthday. I just can’t think of any better way to express my gratitude for life than ... Read more
I had not yet decided whether to write two separate papers on Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America and Margaret Atwood’s Moral Disorder or to try to link them in some ... Read more
I was delighted by Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam. There wasn’t a time when I became impatient or bored with the story, or when I questioned the style of the writing. In ... Read more