craft
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Nowhere to Hide
At the Guardian, Lisa McInerney explains how writing short fiction helped her to develop the skills to write a novel: Short fiction leaves its author nowhere to hide. I cannot disappear into a character or some grand conspiracy, as I can…
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An Argument Against Spinelessness
Considering the other forces vying to demarcate our time, dividing it up between mass shootings and other traumas, to encounter a packed bookshelf, a library, or a bookstore with a breathtaking procession of spines and all the potential therein—it is…
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The Rumpus Interview with Sharon Oard Warner
Sharon Oard Warner discusses her latest book, Sophie’s House of Cards, Breaking Bad, how a sense of place informs fiction, and the Republican war on Planned Parenthood.
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Is Writing Art or Profession?
For those who start within the establishment, professional writing is likely to correspond to drudgery, and they’ll seek to escape it. For those on the outside looking in, it’s a mark of legitimacy. The reasons behind why writers write is…
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Anna March’s Reading Mixtape #12: The Art and Craft of Writing
The writing advice I give is this: 1) Sit down 2) Write These wise and talented writers have more to say.
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Integrating Your Experiments
For Electric Literature, novelist Noy Holland explores what it means to label (and often dismiss) writing as “experimental.” Holland notes the subjectivity and mess inherent in language and form, and why writing that aims for clarity might sacrifice authenticity in…
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Marginalized
Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake — not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written.…
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Make Your Writing A Beautiful Mess
A lovely and thoughtful argument for writing with a pencil. Hear her out before you decide.
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A World Made of Words
At ZYZZYVA, Christian Kiefer talks with novelist Scott Hutchins and playwright Octavio Solis about learning and developing as writers, the difference between writing plays and writing novels, and writing as a craft: It’s an art. There’s alchemy in the process by which…
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The Rumpus Interview with Lincoln Michel
Lincoln Michel talks about his debut short story collection, Upright Beasts, his interest in monsters, and what sources of culture outside of literature inspire him.
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The Rumpus Interview with Garth Risk Hallberg
Garth Risk Hallberg talks about his debut, City on Fire, living in New York City now and in the ’70s, and the anxiety and gratitude you feel when your first novel generates so much buzz.
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The Rumpus Interview with Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff talks about her new novel, Fates and Furies, the life of creative people and those who love them, and why she’s grateful to anyone who reads books.