writing
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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?
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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.
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“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 writer. I mean there is not a fixed amount of…
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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…
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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.
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Sense of Place #2: Christopher Beha, Washington Square Park
At some point, the neighborhood — and these walks around it — seeped into the story.
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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.
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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, scene. When those pieces surface in me, I feel them,…
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“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 story. However, getting into the mind frame of these characters can cause…
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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 writers begging for a little drama in their pathetic lives.…
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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.
