Happy New Year

Posted by Sharon Hunt Jan 1, 2008

Happy New Year! May this be a great year, both personally and professionally, for you.

It certainly will be a busy year in the Writing Non-Fiction section, with more great articles to inspire, push you forward, or make you consider a different kind of non-fiction writing.

Have you ever written a personal essay? A book review? Do you have a terrific idea for a non-fiction book? Maybe this will be the year when you take a chance on writing something you have only dreamed about writing.

My list of take-a-chance writing projects includes a book of essays about moving back home, and how I’m rediscovering the things – both wonderful and distressing – that make it a unique place to live. The great American writer Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel entitled You Can’t Go Home Again, and I think that he was right. Our memories never quite meld with the realities before us, and maybe that’s as it should be.

Of course, I am excited about writing more articles about non-fiction, and more blog entries, too, and hope that we can develop a stimulating dialogue about this great genre.

I’m also planning to finish a family cookbook, with recipes passed down by generations of women who could turn their hands to anything cooked or baked and make it delicious. I pride myself on being handy in the kitchen, too, but as I’ve been testing recipes I loved as a child, I realize that I still have a lot to learn, and am eager to do that.

Bette Davis, that great actress, had a line in the movie All About Eve: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.” I’d like to take a liberty and change two words: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be an exciting ride.”