Sally Rooney’s novels Conversations with Friends and Normal People have been two of the most talked-about books of the past five years. Profiles of Rooney tend to feature her age (she’s not yet thirty) and to deploy descriptions like “phenomenon”…
There are many reasons music resonates with us. Most times it’s because that music has prompted a bit of nostalgia. Maybe it reminds you of your childhood or of a loved one or even a lover. Sometimes music can remind…
As the author of Long Story Short, the Only Storytelling Guide You’ll Ever Need and What’s Your Story? A Workbook for the Storyteller in All of Us, I get asked a lot about how long a story for the stage…
Gish Jen is the author of five works of fiction, including Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land, and World and Town, as well as two books of nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories four…
In the many years since I decided to become a writer and teacher, I’ve heard numerous students, and even established writers, bemoan what they call writer’s block with some variation of the lament “I just don’t feel I have anything…
One of the best parts of being a poet is the outrageousness of it. “Out here I can say anything” Larry Levis famously wrote, and we understand viscerally what he meant. On the page, we get to say anything, go…
When it comes to emphasizing, setting off, and differentiating bits of dialogue, cartoonists and comic artists have a wide range of graphic techniques at their disposal. Used in moderation, these approaches to visual writing can really add to your characters’…
“If I can get that first paragraph right,” Stephen King once told The Atlantic, “I’ll know I can do the book.” Starting a story—or novel—can feel pretty intimidating. And to be sure, a compelling start can do more than encourage…
When people learn that I’m a nature writer, there’s a natural assumption that what I spend most of my time doing is writing about nature. While it would not be unkind or even inaccurate to characterize my work this way,…
The end of the decade is here! As we move in to the ’20s, we’re looking back on this past year to celebrate some truly great books. End 2019 with a bang (or start 2020 fresh!) with these 19 fiction…
There is this belief that we can sit down at a laptop or open our notebooks and write a poem. While some can do that, there are many who, when they sit down and see the blank screen, follow that…
Tom Perrotta is the author of nine works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His other books include Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, Joe College, The…
At the top of every slippery slope is a spot that feels like solid, level ground. For me, the top of one such slope came around mid-May of this year. After holding out for over 10 years, I’d gotten a…
The objective of this workshop is to practice architectural criticism through the lens of insight. Where most architectural criticism is evaluatory, leveling judgment on a given project, this form of feedback is not. It assumes that the world is complex…
Chris Abani is a novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. Born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and English mother, he grew up in Afikpo, Nigeria, and published his first book at age 16. Jailed three times and sentenced to death…