Writing When Your Life Depends on It
Do I want to live, or do I want to write? Sometimes I think it’s that simple.
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Posts Tagged: creative writing
The Rumpus Interview with Alice Mattison
Alice Mattison discusses her newest book, The Kite and the String, a meditation on her lifelong journey through the craft of writing, the joys of teaching writing, and the importance of community.
...moreWriting Badly
Bad writing is almost always a love poem addressed by the self to the self. The person who will admire it first and last and most is the writer herself. Over at the Guardian, writer Toby Litt explores what makes bad writing so terrible. Not only is bad writing boring and “written defensively,” but “bad […]
...moreWriters: Be Bold!
To risk something real as a writer is to risk making a fool of oneself. … It is a difficult joy to risk something new as a writer. But it is a joy nonetheless. Author and translator Idra Novey knows what it means to take chances in her work. Over at Catapult, she explains how […]
...moreWhose Workshop Is It?
Here’s what I mean by not centering the author of the workshop piece: I always tell my students, following the lead of my favorite MFA professor, that the truth is that workshop is most helpful to the person talking, not the person being workshopped. Not that it isn’t or can’t be helpful to the person […]
...moreLearning the Hard, Creative Way
In my father’s world, which still bore the markings of the class system he had fled seventeen years before, thinking that you were better than the life you had, which had actually allowed him to escape, was also a betrayal of one’s class. If I thought that I was talented enough to be a writer, […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Across the Divide
The proof of their friendship came through years of devotion.
...moreCompetitive Writing
If you win, then you talk to the other winners, congratulating and praising them. If you lose, then you read through your submission, noting mistakes that weren’t there five minutes before, wondering where you went wrong,” she adds. “You tell yourself, ‘It doesn’t really matter. I’ll survive.’ But a squeaky voice in the back of […]
...moreMountains, Lowlands, and Archipelagos
Horace Engdahl thinks that creative writing programs and the walled-off communities academic programs create are hurting western literature. Since writing courses help monetize writing—and fund writers as professionals—Engdahl worries that the courses are removing writers from the real world. Engdahl finds fault with literary criticism, too: “We talk in the same way about everything which […]
...moreThe Magic Building Where English Majors Work
A professor of undergraduate and graduate creative writing for twenty years, Cathy Day gives some practical advice for students at The Millions, admitting while English majors don’t work in a “magic building,” the degree does have some often overlooked benefits.
...moreInside a Writer’s Head
New research reveals how a creative writer’s brain functions while writing. As it turns out, it might not be so different from a basketball player’s brain. The New York Times has the whole story.
...moreWhen The Writing Gets Tough
Over at Electric Literature, Joseph Rositano contemplates the relationship between writing and mental health. Though he admits that creative writing has been associated with “mental abnormality” for centuries (the number of writers who committed suicide isn’t small), it’s still difficult to explain why this particular discipline—as opposed to painting or science, which also have the “‘tortured genius’ […]
...moreIrresistible Narrators and Riveting Scenes with Steve Almond
Rumpus columnist and friend Steve Almond is teaching two classes at the Grotto in San Francisco on July 19th! How to Write Riveting Scenes will investigate what it takes to keep readers on the edge of their seats, while How to Create Irresistible Narrators examines the work of Nabokov, Salinger, Austen, and others in an effort […]
...moreAll Roads Lead to Writing
Over at The Millions, Rumpus contributor Nick Ripatrazone looks at the many and varied paths that bring writers to the profession and considers the benefits of time spent studying subjects other than creative writing: Although I have drifted toward the science of syntax, I think about the positives of studying content that is not literary. My […]
...moreCreative Writing, Creative Careers
The two central myths are one, that literary citizenship is all about self-promotion, and two, that it’s connected deeply to the “marketplace.” In an interview for Ploughshares, Tasha Golden talks to “writing geek” Stephanie Vanderslice about teaching the business side of a creative writing career. It’s a must-read for creative writers trying to figure out a […]
...moreObsession and Humor in Writing
In early December, Rumpus columnist Steve Almond will teach writing classes at the SF Grotto. His December 7th class will focus on the idea of embracing one’s obsessions to jump-start good writing, avoiding the pitfalls of sentiment and self-absorption. On December 8th, Steve will teach a class pitching “funny” as the “new deep,” keeping in […]
...moreMaster of Feeling Ambivalent
There are a lot of people who have very strong feelings about MFA programs, but Blake Butler’s Vice piece “What I Remember from Getting an MFA in Creative Writing,” just sort of lays out the details and holds back on the judgment (not unlike good fiction, really). It’s surprisingly beautiful in its ambivalence: I remember getting […]
...moreTo Teach Or Not to Teach?
The ever-contentious subject of teaching creative writing is up for discussion. You can teach the elements, but there are always the “intangibles that cannot be taught.” Roxane Gay is inciting a discussion on HTMLGiant, laying some foundation for all of the student/teacher ideas into one mega-blog dialogue delineating the building blocks of creative writing. Here’s […]
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