on Brevity Blog:

Early on in grad school, one of my mentors told me that I was a quiet writer. As one of the oldest in the cohort (I started my MFA program at 51), I was nervous about fitting in, and this comment from one of the faculty I most admired set me on edge. I didn’t know what he meant. I’m not a particularly loud person, but I wouldn’t describe myself as an introvert either. He read the concern on my face and gave me a reassuring smile.

I’d fallen for the essay form and was writing about things like the death of my kids’ hermit crab, what my mother packed (and didn’t pack) when she moved to live near me, and the made up, secret words my father and I shared when I was young. Small things from my life, past and present, uncomplicated on the surface—quiet.

Quiet writing isn’t a genre, it’s more like a style and an approach. For creative nonfiction, it’s narrative that focuses on everyday moments, employs keen observation, and includes details and imagery to demonstrate and investigate the human experience. It reads quiet but still carries the tension and conflict that is fundamental to good storytelling. The writer draws from the subtle, simple happenings and struggles of the everyday and expands to find meaning and understanding through that moment. There may be other definitions of quiet writing out there, but this is where I’ve landed.