May 05, 2022
As an Indigenous Writer, I Push and Protect My Readers, My People, and Myself
Redactions can be both silence and explanation. They function purely on my own terms and for my audience, my community.
Writing Social Media Into Fiction
Social media is often portrayed as the enemy of the writer—but like any good enemy, perhaps it’s best to keep it close. Don’t miss this craft essay by Isle McElroy for our Social Media Week series.
Apr 26, 2022
To Write for Middle-Grade Readers is to Write About Elsewhere
We’re not writing for us as we are now, but us as we were, or could have been, or should have been.
Apr 21, 2022
Who Is Steven Hotdog? Or, Untangling the “Braided Essay”
A personal essay of the Steven Hotdog form needs the interior experience, the exterior fact, and the meaning that connects them—in order to work its magic.
Mar 30, 2022
On the Limits and Possibilities of the Sentence
After another breath, I return to the sentence “This is because that is.”
Mar 29, 2022
I Couldn’t Stop Updating My Memoir
Writing a memoir is a process of curation. But I kept wanting mine to reflect my up-to-the-moment present.
Feb 17, 2022
The Anxiety of Exclamation Points
My exclamation points are part of a decades-long project to be as truthful as possible to my lived experience as a child of immigrants.
Feb 02, 2022
Teaching Freshman Comp Was the Best Writing Education I Ever Got
As part of our Education Week series, Jaime Green describes how teaching the fundamentals in undergrad writing comp made her a better writer.
Jan 24, 2022
Lessons from the Paintbrush to the Pen
I discovered that storytelling is also just as much science as art.
Dec 22, 2021
Why We Should Translate Literature About Trauma
Translating trauma and violence is not just about deciphering pain but also about recreating an emotional language that helps us to understand each other better.
Dec 16, 2021
What You May Never Find During the Research Process
What happens to your writing project if you are unable to find a particular source? Adin Dobkin shares two options: either you carry on or decide the project is valueless without it.
Dec 15, 2021
The Working Metaphors of Novel Writing
Ingrid Rojas Conteras speaks to Naima Coster, Alexandra Kleeman, R. O. Kwon, Laura van den Berg, and Bryan Washington about the language they use to describe writing novels.
Dec 14, 2021
Bringing Acting Technique to Exploratory Writing
When beginning a new written work, apply acting exercises to explore the intent, sensory experiences, and focus of your writing.
Dec 02, 2021
Native Flowers and True Names: Using Research to Write Richer Narrative Fiction
To write her book ‘If You Leave Me,’ Crystal Hana Kim used research to be true to Korea, down to its roots.
Nov 30, 2021
What If We Taught Writing the Way We Teach Acting?
Actors studied movement, script analysis, emotional connection, our bodies, our voices. In my writing MFA, we got . . . workshop.
Nov 10, 2021
Drafting a Personal Essay Is Like Stumbling Through a Dance
You can study all you want, but it’s only in the act of doing that you learn what’s right and what isn’t.
Nov 08, 2021
Don’t Call It Writer’s Block
It’s rare to hear writers—especially more established ones—claim that term in public.
Sep 23, 2021
Writing Down the Ghosts
My whole process of writing is tricking my brain into writing without realizing what I’m doing, to make myself write even when the idea of writing instills a vomity feeling in my gut.
Sep 20, 2021
The Memoir Time Machine
As a writer of personal nonfiction, I worry that with every memoir or essay, I risk fragmenting and simplifying my life into words living on pages.
Aug 18, 2021
A Memoir Should Be a Conversation, Not a Monologue
It’s about suggesting, right there on the page, that the writer is no more important than the reader.
Aug 16, 2021
