An interview by Alicia Cole. Sidney Williams is the author of eight traditionally published books, five under his own name and three young adult titles under his Michael August pseudonym. He’s also written a host of short stories for magazines…
Guest Post: In Defense of Fanfiction by Erika Staiger
Like a lot of creative writing MFA students, I’m spending my summer trying to turn a few half-written scenes into a novel that I hope might become my thesis (I’m in the I-should-have-just-gone-to-law-school-like-my-parents-wanted-me-to faze of my writing process, thanks for…
Guest Post: What to Remember While Time Traveling by Lisa Aldridge
My grandfather took me fishing when I was a little girl. I’ll never forget the thrill of catching my first fish and the utter horror at how that fish flopped around helplessly gasping for gill-filtered oxygen. Until the moment I…
Guest Post: Because of Merwin by Michelle Boland
It’s time for a confession. I have been hiding my poetry writing as a shameful secret for quite some time. Those few occasions when I spoke the words out loud to someone, “I’m a poet,” I felt like I was…
Guest Post: Writing into the Void by Sarah Bradley
It’s something straight out of a science fiction novel: a dark and limitless expanse, full of bright stars, as foreign and intangible as any distant galaxy. It’s a kind of limbo, a gray area where my thoughts are made concrete…
Guest Post: Keeping the Writer-in-You Fed by Carol Park
In my previous blog I discussed the many mandates given writers about keeping up their writing life. I question whether these literary practices are actually absolute in nature. They are often touted with the same certainty as a college education….
Guest Post: Practicing the Literary Arts by Carol Park
I consider my practice of the literary arts routinely. Do you, dear writer? I’ll appreciate your comments. Being asked to write about my literary practices has galvanized me to think on this in a deeply personal and extended manner. It’s…
Guest Post: Shortcut to Characterization: Music, by Brendan Stephens
For years most of my fiction has been about characters in bands, usually in the punk and hardcore scene. It started with the whole “write what you know” thing. Before I started to write with any sort of regularity, I…
Guest Post: An Open Letter to My Childhood Heroes (And Their Authors) by Liza Carrasquillo
Dear Heroes, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for being there for me when I was a child with little else to find comfort in. When I was sick and stuck in bed, we passed through…
Guest Post: As Student Writers by Alena Zhang
We are often intimidated at the thought of putting our writing out into the world. Writing makes us vulnerable; reading someone’s poem is like peeking into their soul. Without writing, however, we would have no way to articulate the inner…
Guest Post: Belly-flopping in other people’s waterholes by Elizabeth Morton
Okay. Poetic license. That’s a thing right? It usually involves a mixed metaphor, a dubiously placed semi colon, a counter-intuitive line break. Wow, that’s licentious, people might disclaim. Behold, the shock-jock of grammar. Look at her go, with her odd…
Guest Post: To Find the Time to Write by Eric Rasmussen
Let’s all imagine a nice middle-America gal named Laura. Laura likes colorful sweaters, loves her daughters, and feels ambivalent about her job, maybe as a nutritionist. Plenty of things bring Laura joy: homemade marinara sauce, suggestive text messages from her…