Victoria Noe

Award-winning Author, Speaker, Activist

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5 Easy Steps to Being a Better Writer

5 Easy Steps to Being a Better Writer
Sep 13, 2016 by Victoria Noe
gallery.yopriceville.com

I’ve been to a lot of writing events: conferences, Meetups, presentations, meetings and writing groups. That’s not counting podcasts, online classes, webinars, tweet chats, and Google+ hangouts. There are times, honestly, when I just…can’t…

But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I learned something from every one of them, even if it was something that didn’t reveal itself until later. That’s happened a lot: that I hear something but it doesn’t register until long after the event is over.

So for what it’s worth, here are five things I’ve picked up on improving your writing: Write. Yeah, I know: duh. But being busy is not the same thing as being active. Talking or thinking about writing is...

My Writing Teacher

My Writing Teacher
Jan 05, 2016 by Victoria Noe
My writing group - Jo on the left

I took this picture of my writing group a few years ago. I was the youngest in the group, by about two decades, though you couldn’t tell based on the energy during those meetings.

In the fall of 2006, I signed up for a Life Story Writing class at Swedish Covenant Hospital here in Chicago. My father had died the year before, and I wanted help preserving family stories. I didn’t consider myself a writer (still don’t on some days). A few months earlier I’d promised my friend Delle that I’d write a book about people grieving their friends, but I wasn’t convinced it would ever happen.

Almost everyone there was...

Friend Grief Presentations

Friend Grief Presentations
Jul 07, 2015 by Victoria Noe
bandni.co.uk

I attended a writers’ conference a few years ago. I was particularly looking forward to one presentation. The speaker – who shall remain nameless – was someone I’d been following for a while on Twitter. Occasionally sarcastic, his tweets were always entertaining and full of great tips. We gathered in the ballroom and he opened his mouth.

Not many speakers have ever disappointed me as much as he did. While his online persona was larger-than-life, in person he was the opposite. He rarely made eye contact with his audience as he read from his script. He could barely be heard, as he did not make good use of the microphone. Unlike some people, I stayed for the...

My Writing Group

My Writing Group
Apr 04, 2013 by Victoria Noe
markdivincenzowriter.com In the fall of 2006, a flyer from Swedish Covenant Hospital arrived in the mail. Among the events listed was a class in life story writing. It was just over a year after my father died, and coupled with my being the family genealogist, I decided it was time to start writing down the stories I’d heard all my life.We were a group of about a dozen or so, mostly women, mostly older. The leader was a retired creative writing teacher from Northwestern University. Each week we read something we’d written, and the group critiqued it. I’d not had any of my writing critiqued since college, so it was a little unsettling. And at the time, the idea of writing...

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