Lynn Steger Strong

Instructor & Writer
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Lynn Steger Strong's first novel, Hold Still, was released by Liveright/WW Norton in March 2016. She received an MFA from Columbia University and her non-fiction has been published in Guernica, LARB, Elle.com, Catapult, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. She teaches both fiction and non-fiction writing at Columbia University, Fairfield University, and the Pratt Institute. Lynn's second novel, Want, is forthcoming from Henry Holt in spring 2020.

Classes

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Stories

Cover Photo: This photograph is of a classroom of students, most of them sitting at desks and taking notes, with one woman standing up as if talking to a teacher, holding her notebooks to her chest. She has a smile on her face.
The Intimacy of Teaching Creative Writing

Enjoy this conversation between Lynn Steger Strong and Laura Spence-Ash and read novel excerpts from her 12-Month Generator students in this graduation showcase.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Nov 29, 2021
Don’t Write Alone | Notes From Class
Cover Photo: This photograph is mostly out of focus, other than a healthy indoor plant in the right hand corner. Past the plant, we see a laptop open on a table, and its out-of-focus screen shows the panels of a video call.
Making Space for Writing in 2020

A new life can grow inside a book once you realize you’re not making it all for yourself.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Jun 02, 2021
Don’t Write Alone | Notes From Class
Cover Photo: Two young women sit at an outside table in the sun. One is reading a book and one is taking notes in a journal and drinking a to-go cup of coffee.
So, You’ve Finished Your Book

When my students finished a draft, all I wanted them to do was sit inside of it for longer than was comfortable. To acknowledge and celebrate what they’d accomplished.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Oct 03, 2019
On Writing | Turning Points
Cover Photo: How To Finish by Lynn Steger Strong
How To Finish

Three ways of thinking that might help you get the damned novel done, from our beloved 12-Month Novel Generator instructor, Lynn Steger Strong (author of HOLD STILL)

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Lynn Steger Strong
Jan 31, 2019
Catapult Instructors Community | Advice
Cover Photo: Photograph by Gabriel Crismariu via Unsplash
What I Imagined Motherhood Would Be, and What It Is

When you give birth to a life, you are also giving birth to a death.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Oct 11, 2018
People | Family | Parenting
Cover Photo: How She Did It: On Penelope Fitzgerald, Writing, and Women at Work by Lynn Steger Strong
How She Did It: On Penelope Fitzgerald, Writing, and Women at Work

Fitzgerald was ground down, I imagine, consumed by how to take care of her family. This didn’t make her any less the thinker, writer, reader, that she was.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Apr 09, 2018
Things | Books
Cover Photo: Edward Peters "Paparazzi" via Flickr
Capture This: How We Live Away From the Lens

I was embarrassed each time I got out my camera.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Mar 19, 2018
Things | Exhibit
Cover Photo: Tallulah Pomeroy
Why I Wanted to Write About Anger

I want to write about space and time, and feeling like somehow we’ve always had less of it than our male counterparts.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Jan 05, 2018
How To | Genre Studies
Cover Photo: photo by galwonder/flickr
The Story I Can’t Write About My Family

In fiction, one needs motivations, wants, and fears; one needs cause and effect. In life, it’s messier.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Sep 14, 2017
How To | Figures
Cover Photo: bellonaspqr
Reader-Based

On Virginia Woolf, making hats, escapism, and how to write a novel that readers will read.

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Lynn Steger Strong
Apr 14, 2016
On Writing | Notes From Class