Writing poetry in your own language is a kind of translation—you put your thoughts and feelings into words and music on the page. Nothing gets to the heart of that process faster than comparing actual English translations of the same…
Gracious — that’s the word that comes to mind when I think of Karen Russell. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and MacArthur Genius, Russell need not respond to my email asking for the below answers. But not only did she respond…
This is the Hugo House “How-To” series, where Hugo House instructors share tips related to the writing life. This week’s post comes from Waverly Fitzgerald who is teaching Deep Novel Revision, which will help writers with a rough draft (maybe…
This is the Hugo House “How-To” series, where Hugo House instructors share tips related to the writing life. This week’s post comes from writer Anne Liu Kellor. Her ten-session course, Memoir as Collage, will explore personal narratives as told in…
Writers often ask how to get a story started—but just as important is the question of how to keep one going. There’s quite a distance between the first and final pages of a novel or memoir—and it’s not just the…
Last fall, I met a pair of reclusive military veterans at a house that lay down a leafy, mossy backroad of the Quinault Valley. I told them I wanted to hear their thoughts about noise pollution—the rattling Navy jets that…
“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald For years I’ve kept this quote pinned to the wall above my writing desk. In the past, I understood it to be about the murk…