Institutional Knowledge
A revolutionary feminist’s portrayal of life with mental illness
Writers With Day Jobs: Earning a Living Outside of Literature
In 2018, as a younger writer in a different phase of life, I was thrilled to interview prolific author William Vollmann. A digital magazine employed me at the time, but…
Do Your Research: Using the Tools of Journalism to Write More Vivid Fiction
Endless research can be an occupational hazard. Johns taught a summer historical fiction workshop where only one writer out of ten brought pages for critique—the other nine had spent years…
The Retreat Has Left the Group Chat: Planning and Executing a Successful Retreat With Writer Friends
The writers I spoke with agree: Myriad options exist for how to organize a retreat that’s generative, meaningful, and fun; there’s no one way to do this. Are travel and…
Retreats Run by Writers, for Writers
While many writer-run retreats are fairly new, and their founders are still tinkering with the format, some like Dallagiacomo are plotting ways to turn them into lasting institutions. In the…
The Room Where It Happened: The Delights, Oddities, and Haunted Ephemera of Residencies at Writers’ Homes
In many cases, that strange magic of the in-between, combined with the intimacy of submerging so fully in an artist’s material life, seems to affect residents in unexpected ways. Writers…
stage direction
in your writing
How the Light Gets In: The Nightlight
In being a parent and being a writer, there is no routine, no one way of doing things that is right; some things that we must do to get the…
How the Light Gets In: The Moon
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve lost access to much of the community I’ve relied on as a writer. My husband has profound long COVID—I don’t want to risk…