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.
...more
Posts Tagged: writers
Funny Women #152: Features of the Groundbreaking American Writers Museum
We’ll be open as long as the National Endowment for the Arts is.
...more
The Girl on the Bike
First, we must recognize our removal from the machinations of the shadows. The screen stands between us and the internal world depicted on it. There is no communion.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Real Evan
Character Evan is pretty impressive; real Evan, not so much—can it be as simple as that?
...moreKeeping Family and Writing Separate
Here’s a question many writers loathe: what does your family think about your writing? Nosy readers gobble up the chance to connect a story’s characters and their real-life counterparts, and writers are generally sick of having their artistic lives colliding with their personal ones. At Catapult, Chloe Caldwell shares how she handles this busybody question. (And, if […]
...more
The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Anne Raeff
Married authors Anne Raeff and Lori Ostlund, both winners of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, discuss their craft, their process, and the way they negotiate the give and take involved in sharing a vocation.
...moreOvertime Changes Could Upend Publishing Industry Norms
Changes to overtime laws could have a big impact the way the publishing industry pays staff. Salaried employees earning less than $47,476 a year will be entitled to overtime pay at a rate of one and a half times their base pay beginning December 1, 2016. This change could have major implications for the publishing industry […]
...moreCreation, Not Comfort
At The Millions, Connor Ferguson muses on writing routines, the tortured artist trope, and the role discomfort plays in the create process: Even if they aren’t trying to be explicitly didactic, most writers feel compelled to create stories, novels, plays, and essays as a way to address discord or imbalance that they perceive in the […]
...moreThis Advice Is Terrible
Don’t use semicolons and other terrible advice from good writers.
...moreAre Writers Too Safe?
Is a lack of economic stability making writers too safe? Maggie Doherty argues “yes”: Nearly half a century later, we find ourselves at a different sort of crisis point. Radical literary experimentation continues, but it has become the privilege of a few. In Barth’s day, a robust welfare state supported writers. Public patronage programs provided […]
...moreWriters and Moral Obligation
At the New York Times Book Ends column this week, Zoë Heller and Francine Prose discuss whether or not William Faulkner’s famous quote, “The writer’s only responsibility is to his art,” holds up. In other words, Heller asks, does producing great art excuse terrible human behavior? Her conclusion is that no, it doesn’t. Prose seems to […]
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz talks about his newest novel, Ashley Bell, overcoming self-doubt, and “what this incredibly beautiful language of ours allows you to do.”
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Bill Clegg
Author and agent Bill Clegg talks about his new novel, Did You Ever Have A Family, grief in fiction and in life, and why there is no finish line except the final finish line.
...moreWhat Not to Say Around Writers
Writers have heard it all from readers, non-readers, strangers who question if books are still relevant, acquaintances who sigh about how nice it must be to stay home all day and write. Several popular authors have taken to Twitter to air their grievances with the hashtag #TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter, and Time has the story, along with some of the […]
...moreAre Writers Better with Age?
Not everyone is going to make a “5 under 35” list. Actually, most writers won’t. Though the zeitgeist seems obsessed with youthful writers, older is often better, as this infographic from the Guardian charting the age of authors at the time they wrote their masterpieces reveals.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Rainbow Rowell
Rainbow Rowell talks about her new novel, Landline, the writing advice she refuses to follow, and young adult fiction.
...moreHow to Love a Writer
Writers are not the easiest people to fall in love with. Many of the characteristics of a great writer also make for a horrific companion. Over at Ploughshares, Amber Kelly-Anderson explores some of the things to expect when the heart wants a wordsmith. Loving a writer is like rescuing a pet—it can be trying at times, but […]
...moreRotten Apples and Other Writerly Customs
Nearly any creative writing course, teacher, or mentor will give you the same advice—writing is a solitary act and is different for every writer. However, some of us writers are a bit more different than others. Brain Pickings shows us the wacky habits of many esteemed writers. We especially enjoy this anecdote about Friedrich Schiller: […]
...moreWriters Really Are The Worst Procrastinators
“I once asked a talented and fairly famous colleague how he managed to regularly produce such highly regarded 8,000 word features. “Well,” he said, “first, I put it off for two or three weeks. Then I sit down to write. That’s when I get up and go clean the garage. After that, I go upstairs, […]
...more
How Not to Be Humiliated
Twenty-one years ago, a week before Thanksgiving, you were admitted to Dorothea Dix State Psychiatric Hospital in Raleigh, NC.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Olivia Laing
Writer, journalist, and critic Olivia Laing discusses her newest book, The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking, and the challenges of looking into the mind of an alcoholic versus the mind of a writer.
...moreWriters and Their Day Jobs
Oscar Wilde once wrote, “The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread…” In an interview with The Atlantic, poet Amy Woolard discusses her double life as a writer and policy attorney. The two versions of me–work self and writing self–seem like such different […]
...moreGreat Book Dedications!
Here are 30 book dedications that are probably just as good as the book. Included in this amazing round up are Tobias Wolff, John Steinbeck, Charles Bukowski, and C.S. Lewis. Here is one from A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genuis: First of all: I am tired I am true of heart! And also You are […]
...moreGratitude
Even without a government shutdown, writers are not usually known to be a happy bunch. “Writers are too neurotic to ever be happy,” author Connie Willis once said. It is often necessary for writers to dwell in certain worlds and mindsets in order to get their message onto the page. Some might call it a […]
...moreIgnore This Advice
Policy Mic has a fun post about the four worst things people tell young writers about writing. Perhaps the most important of these to disregard is “Good writers always write well”: Imagine you are someone who has no idea how to play a guitar. One day, you pick up a guitar and run your fingers […]
...moreComputers Replacing Writers
There are those companies that don’t pay their writers to produce content in order to save money, and then there is this. Narrative Science software produces content. It’s being used by twenty companies in order to avoid taking on more writers (and thereby paying more writers) to turn data into a news piece. “The Narrative […]
...moreAll of Us, Anchored in Place
“…isn’t it strange, I mean, this thing about being a human being breathing and thinking and sensing and dwelling always, always, in a place?” This essay in the Millions is all about place and home—how all aspects of living occurs in some sort of physical context, all readers are anchored in some sort of “inner […]
...moreWriters and their Snack Choices
What kind of caloric encouragement do writers need to get through a day? Snack choices are among the most important quotidian decisions we make, and often we’re consistent with the ones that work best. Our very own Wendy MacNaughton charts the snack decisions of authors in this beautiful graphic for the New York Times. She […]
...moreReading For Money
Literary festivals are blowing up (at least in the UK), as evidenced by the new festivals that popped up this year alone, even though it’s increasingly difficult to get sponsors and funders in these times. To get the funds flowing for writers, there may be a new trend in the works: “A combination of the […]
...moreIn all Seriousness
We’ve been seeing a lot from Roxane Gay lately, on The Rumpus as well as in other literary blog realms. Ever wondered about her writing process? See what she has to say about writing in general, as well as about writers who seriously take themselves too seriously.
...more