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So I know a lot of you have been in workshops, either here at LitReactor or other places. How can you be a good critique partner, no matter what the environment? Here are some tips based on my twelve years of experience. Hope it helps.

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Photo courtesy of Karin Cecile Davidson

In 1987, living in Iowa City with no intention of even trying for the Writers’ Workshop, I read and wrote and worked at New Pioneer Co-op, bouncing from running a register to unloading back stock to fronting bottles of shampoo or restocking bottles of beer. In the five years since graduating college, I’d worked on Colorado River rafting trips in the Grand Canyon; on the Mississippi Queen—a paddlewheel boat loaded with passengers and crew that traveled the Mississippi River between New Orleans and St.

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I'm a little bit of a messy eater, so if I snack while I'm reading the food has to be very smudge-free, otherwise, I'm likely to leave more on the page than just my feelings. Some of my favorite go-to snacks are: Nuts & Seeds, Popcorn (not too buttery!), and pretzels. There's something so satisfying about the relaxing nature of eating and reading at the same time. But twice as nice is eating and reading about food! Food horror is totally a thing. Don't believe me? Check out these recommendations of horror with an emphasis on food.

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This is going to sound like the embittered ramblings of someone who’s been rejected by a whole lot of publishers, lit mags, and agents.

I guess this is the part where I explain why that’s not true. But I’m skipping that. Because, readers, if you’ve gone through a fair number of submissions, you’ll know that I speak the truth here. Once in awhile, an embittered jerkface, like myself ,gets it right.

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Photo by Badulescu Badulescu

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the line: how it breathes, how it holds itself together, the way it drags us gasping and screaming off the page. At the same time, it’s both vibrant and silent, and yet what’s so fascinating about it is the fact that its importance is so often overlooked because we, as writers and readers, often turn a blind eye to the way it frames the poem, how its skeleton allows us to move and dance and disappear on and off the page.