Despite two and a half years in a top-ranked MFA program, nobody told me anything about what the writing life was like—especially outside the shelter of academia. In our writing workshops we analyzed the short stories everyone was writing in…
A Conversation with Jarret Keene
Jarret Keene earned his Ph.D. in creative writing at Florida State University. A beloved and highly sought after professor, Dr. Keene is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he teaches…
The Haptic: The Tugboat of Narration by David Massey
There is an open canal between the body and the mind where feelings are concerned, and a sensation in the body is felt immediately in the mind. It may seem absurd to mention such an obvious point, but this truism…
5 Prompts to Use with Our Contest Theme: Rhapsody of Regret (Part 2)
As promised, we’re giving you the second set of prompts related to our current writing contest theme, Rhapsody of Regret! We hope the prompts provide you with inspiration and get you motivated to put words on the page! Even if…
“Method Writing”: Where Acting and Creative Writing Overlap by Charissa Roberson
I attended a theater camp every winter when I was in high school. Usually, I played a background character who delivered a line or two during the production. But my senior year, I got a small, yet substantial role that…
Finding Your Genre: Grief, a Pandemic, and a Blind Date by Rosemarie Dillon
Once upon a time, I wrote fantasy. My mind gave birth to gorgeous characters and creatures…until eventually, the daunting task of world building brought those journeys to an irreverent halt. You see, I’d never been much of a plotter. I…
La Vie En Rose by Jerrice J. Baptiste
As a little girl, I often encountered dead bodies on my way to school during the Baby Doc dictatorship in the 1980’s. We’d hear the gunshots fired outside of my Catholic school and take cover under our desks. There were…
How to Write a Book While Parenting by Isabel Mader
When your second child is born, you and your partner will decide that it makes the most sense for you to be a stay-at-home parent for a little while. Not forever, just for a little while. And you are thrilled…
Hemingway Looks at Himself by David Massey
Ernest Hemingway led a famously adventurous life, going to wars when he did not have to, hunting big game (and getting a great nonfiction novel, Green Hills of Africa, out of it), becoming an afficionado of bullfighting, boxing in his…
On Styles by David Massey
I’ve been thinking about styles in writing. Narration, dialogue, description, syntax—all these things. By far my favorite American fiction writer is William Faulkner, and if I had it in me, I would probably write like him; but I like sparer styles,…
Writing Advice from the Murder Hornet by PS Nolf
I look at the newspaper photo of the latest invader of the Pacific Northwest, where I live. The yellow ruler with its black calibration documents the two-inch “Murder Hornet.” A thing of nightmares, the Asian Giant Hornet sports huge, black, demon…
Character Fill-In-the-Blank by Rod Martinez
Our love for the written word may have been generated from any number of avenues growing up. We, as artists and students of our beloved art, yearn to learn as much as possible about our craft. That is where the…