Strategic Submissions: Best Practices for Your Pursuit of Writing Opportunities
The best method of getting the literary community to regard you as a serious writer and not a dilettante—even though you have yet to publish the Great American Novel or…
The Writers Group as Teacher: Lessons in Showing Up
A good writers group isn’t defined by rules. It isn’t defined by size. A writers group is working when it teaches you how to read and how to revise, and…
The Five Things Essay
An all-purpose writing prompt to help you find your voice, lose your voice, beat writer's block, or figure out what the hell you want to write about in the first…
The Self-Taught Writer: Crafting a Bespoke Education
On the book tour for my debut novel, the question I was asked at every event was why I did not give up—even as it took me seven years to…
Writing the Libretto: The Art and Music of Poetic Collaboration
None of the tactical or financial considerations above matter much the first time you step into some old church somewhere, to hear, for the first time, a choir rehearse your…
Creating Without Fear: How to Quiet the Inner Critic Through Generative Writing
For over a decade I have participated in a group that meets once a month; typically there are five or six of us. Over the years we’ve honed this process…
Q&A: Youth Poet Laureate Daniel Umemezie
Daniel Umemezie is only beginning his undergraduate education at Iowa State University, where he plans to study aerospace engineering, but he takes with him a wealth of experience as a…
typesetting in google drive
novel settings
The Sound of Imminence: Ruth Ozeki in Praise of the Typewriter
I love the way my fingers have to work, forging a letter-by-letter relationship with the page. I love that the keys leave a tangible impression of my words on the…
A Computer-Free Day: How One Small Mistake Changed My Perspective on Productivity
I’ve often heard the advice that if you get blocked creatively, you should do something other than writing. Go for a walk, listen to music, visit a museum. Yes, yes,…