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Showing 3539 Columns
10 Great First Lines Analyzed
August 5th, 2022
A lot hangs on a story’s first line. Pragmatically speaking, it’s the first place (well, after the title) where you might lose a reader, and so many writers approach first lines with self-consciousness or a kind of literary showmanship.
Read Column →Writing Advice for Non-Writers
August 4th, 2022
You’re not a writer, but you have to write something. HUGE fucking nightmare, right? You’re a best man, you’ve got to say a few words at a funeral, you’ve been asked to write something up to promote your business or to say a few kind words about someone. Let's not panic. I've got a few quick tips that'll guarantee you won't embarrass yourself. What Do I Write About? Okay, so you’ve got your assignment. What do you say?
Read Column →Requiem For Elizabeth V. Aldrich (October 9th, 1992–July 10th, 2022)
August 3rd, 2022
Last month, the literary village suffered, and continues to mourn, the immeasurable loss of firebrand author Elizabeth V. Aldrich, known to the community as Eris; as Lizzie to her closer circle and father, James Allnutt. She would be thirty years old this fall.
Read Column →Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: 10 Dark Nautical Novels
August 1st, 2022
Summer evokes thoughts of warm sands and blue waters, but the ocean has a stranger, darker side. H.P. Lovecraft’s fascination with the depths is clear in “Night Ocean,” his collaboration with R.H. Barlow: “There are men, and wise men, who do not like the sea and its lapping surf on yellow shores; and they think us strange who love the mystery of the ancient and unending deep. Yet for me there is a haunting and inscrutable glamour in all the ocean’s moods.
Read Column →Is My MFA Worth It? For the Sense of Belonging, It Is
July 29th, 2022
Header image via T. Winstead I’ve been staring at a blank page trying to start this article for 30 minutes now. Because how do I encapsulate the experience of a lifetime into a few hundred words? How do I break down all the learning and growing of the first semester of my MFA program into one column? I’ll do my best.
Read Column →Why I Put a Book On A Gameboy Cartridge
July 28th, 2022
Photos by author I did it. I put a book on a Gameboy cartridge. That’s right, anyone with a Gameboy, 4 AA batteries, bird of prey eyesight, and a desire to read one of my books can finally achieve their very specific dream. But this isn’t about a victory lap, although it IS an achievement for me—I am NOT smart. This is about why. Why would I make the effort to do something so pointless and silly?
Read Column →Why Writers Should Read Across the Genres
July 27th, 2022
One of the many reasons I love writing so much is because it's a craft that continually presents new challenges, which in turn lead to opportunities to become a stronger writer. I don't believe anyone ever completely masters writing. It's too subjective of an art to perfect. However, it's a craft where we constantly learn from one another, whether it's new drafting techniques, ways to gather ideas, alternative narrative structures, or topics we've never researched before.
Read Column →The Birthing of "Dream Pop Origami"
July 26th, 2022
Back in 2002, after I’d returned from a stint in Burkina Faso for the Peace Corps, I realized I had so many intense and vivid life experiences I hadn’t written down in my journal, which I’d used mostly for diagnosing my mental health every day. At the time, I began jotting my memories down in part to remember everything before the details got blurry, in part to make sense of what had happened, and in part to cohere and connect all those disparate life events together. I also found consolation in language.
Read Column →"The Autodidacts": Thomas Kendall On Writing Without An Outline
July 25th, 2022
I tend to feel a little physically uncomfortable whenever a writer talks about craft. There’s a kind of involuntary and momentary sensation of repulsion, like when your throat flips up a little bit of sick into your mouth out of nowhere. There’s a gross sourness in my reaction to the word that feels very mine and not mine at the moment of realisation.
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