Not Writing Is Your Alligator
An open letter to a very young writer from a not-much-older writer.
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writing
377 posts
Three Short Essays from The Hard Problem: A Guide for the Intergalactic Writer Looking to Mate
But books aren’t always babies and, perhaps, are not even babies most or any of the time. What are books?
The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Gilbert
This is how I think of it: there’s a contract between you and the mystery. And the mystery is the thing that brings life to the work.
“It’s Not A Zero Sum Game”
“I think in general writers are pretty nice to each other. And it’s not a zero sum game. I think that people understand that there’s always room for another good…
To The Skin
“It” is the overlap between homeless and trans. Oh, did you have a body? When you're trans and homeless, this is really what the “for customers only” restrooms sign say, below their cheerily simplified depictions of “men” and “women”. Did you have a body? Did you think you could eat, shit, live?
Sense of Place #3: Stephanie Ann Whited, Grace Church
In Grace, all utterances, including movement or thought, resound and therefore must be performed with intention.
Sense of Place #2: Christopher Beha, Washington Square Park
At some point, the neighborhood — and these walks around it — seeped into the story.
Sense of Place #1: Amy Lawless, Casa Magazines
A new series from photographer Brad DeCecco, Sense of Place captures authors in places that hold significance to their writing selves or their writing itself.
Life in Fiction
I write for the same reason I read: to free fall into a story and live in that world for a while. My novels begin in tiny glimmers—of character, story,…
“On Writing A Creep”
Jowita Bydlowska muses about how authors can bear to write about jerks, for Hazlitt. Assholes are necessary to a story in the sense that their baffling behavior makes for a better…
Fail Better
“Then again, you might not be the funny type. How about making the rejection letter poignant, depressing, or even hurtful? Push the envelope. Your audience is a bunch of bored…
Where I’ve Laid My Head
I have slept in 26 locations in the last seven months. This was never my intention, this peripatetic life, but looking back now at the age of 40, I can finally see I have been doing it for decades.