Authors and their readers are drawn to reading true crime because, to be honest, sensationalism can make for a good book. My guiding principle comes from Agatha Christie, who said: “The crime is the end of the story.” True crime…
On Friday, May 24, Domingo Martinez, Terese Marie Mailhot, and Margaret Malone will channel their inner strangers. In a recent email exchange, each offered up a hint of what they’re writing for the Lit Series; a look into the superpower…
We’ve all struggled, at one point or another, to explain in conversation what, exactly, our stories are about. We hem and haw. “Well, you see…” And one of the reasons that we get in such a muddle is because sometimes…
Whether you’re just dipping a toe into the waters of your story (fiction or memoir) or you’re stuck rowing around in circles, there are seven basic steps for integrating character development, plot, and structure that will enable you to navigate…
Or: You Never Know When Research Will Prove Useful 1. Not all Navel-Gazing Is Bad A few weeks ago, I published a review of the electronic duo Matmos’s new album, Plastic Anniversary. At the risk of repeating myself, Plastic Anniversary—which…
“To write one’s life is to live it twice.” So says my first memoir teacher, Patricia Hampl. Certainly, writing about your life has all kinds of benefits, from better understanding the past to capturing the essence of your memories in…
What is a lexicon? A wordbook. The vocabulary proper to some department of knowledge or sphere of activity. The vocabulary or word-stock of a region, particular speaker, etc. A list of words or names. Why have a lexicon? “The writers…
Writing character—whether a fabricated one in fiction, a remembered one in memoir, or an imagined historical figure in a poem—can be daunting. Often, we focus too much on how the character looks. We write them as if we were…
A powerful story ending is both inevitable and surprising. Most fiction writers are familiar with this bit of wisdom. But how to pull it off—that sense of an ending that the reader never quite saw coming, even as it seems…
Robert Frost said that “poetry is what gets lost in translation,” meaning that whatever poetry is can’t be carried from one language to another. But that’s obviously false, since we have so many examples of great translations. The process of…
When we experience illness or trauma we hold it in our bodies. Sometimes events happened pre-consciousness, when were very young. Sometimes they happen as we age. No matter how young or old, our bodies are our repositories and these events…
On Friday, March 15, Benjamin Percy, Vanessa Hua, and Keetje Kuipers will metamorphose on stage during 2019’s first Literary Series. In a recent email exchange, each offered up a hint of what they’re writing for the Lit Series, a piece…
Several years ago, I was handed a prompt by one of my writing teachers. The assignment was to write a cento, a form of found poetry where one builds lines out of or around scraps of texts from other writers….
A chapbook is a short (10–30 poems) collection of poems with a unifying principle, theme, question, or experience. A chapbook can be a site for a poet’s obsessions. It can be their calling card, connect them with others, grant them…
An investigative journalist by trade, I am a novelist and essayist by vocation. Today, I encourage you to use research to engage with the world. Don’t just sit at home, typing and scrolling. Google will not get you there. And…
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