I didn’t go for my MFA after graduating from college almost seven years ago. A handful of my classmates went down that path with heads held high and the talent they’d developed during our times together. I didn’t follow them,…
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: 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: Out of Time by Beth Sherman
The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything. – John Irving We must use time creatively. – Martin…
A Conversation with Vanessa Blakeslee
An interview by Alicia Cole. Vanessa Blakeslee is the author of the debut novel, Juventud (Curbside Splendor, 2015), hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as a “tale of self-discovery and intense first love.” Her story collection, Train Shots (Burrow Press) won the…
Guest Post: Let’s All Be Quiet and Talk About How Alice Munro Destroyed the Cathedral or, Some Observations on the State of Short Fiction in 2016 by Patrick E. Gabbard
It’s ironic that since Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2013 after being hailed as “…a master of the contemporary short story,” that the popularity of the form appears to be on the decline, as the legions of…
Guest Post: Becoming a Real Writer: the Creative Writing Major by Colleen Fullin
I recently received an email from a young woman asking for advice. She is a junior at the fine arts high school I attended more than ten years ago. She contacted me at the email address affiliated with my school,…