So often nonfiction is framed by trauma, but what’s so wrong with rose-colored glasses…?
Writers often talk about how humor can be used as a tool to tell hard stories, and I believe leaning into the romantic can be too. If you’re applying a romantic lens to your work you might:
- Ask yourself what conventions of the romance genre you can borrow to apply to your life?
- Consider which details you’ll use to build your world for your reader and develop your characters
- Figure out where that line between romanticizing your past and over indulging in fantasy is — this will help you avoid “purple prose” or unintentionally present yourself as an unreliable narrator (it’s important that you come off as “in on the joke”)
Romancing Your Life is a technique for showing your past self (and those that populated your life) some care, tenderness, and grace.
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Minda lives in Louisville, Kentucky. She has a series of essays for Longreads on dating and politics and her writing has been featured by the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, and Teen Vogue, and every other week she tackles the dating woes of strangers as her city's relationship advice columnist at the LEO Weekly. Her work was also solicited for Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger by Seal Press and in the forthcoming collection from Hub City Press, A Measure of Belonging: Writers of Color on the New American South. She's working on her memoir, An Anthology of Assholes, about dating as a woman of color in Southern California. She is represented by Kayla Lightner at Ayesha Pande Literary.
Minda is such a great teacher! The readings, discussions, and exercises were expertly crafted. Teaching and learning via Zoom isn’t easy, but Minda still created a warm and welcoming classroom feeling, even among a group of socially distanced Zoomers. This class was amazing and I hope to The Porch will offer many many more classes with Minda!
Minda Honey teaches you how to write about life from a place of healing--you become a better writer and a better human.
Minda is super relatable while providing great content. I feel empowered to speak my truth. I think it is also important that she clearly approaches the subject matter through a black femme lens and is unapologetic about it.
