“Time and Distance Overcome”: I titled this class after an essay of the same name by Eula Biss. I wanted a few words to suggest how a dive into the historical record can yield surprising and urgent connections to our…
The hybrid memoir has the potential to be far more than a straight-up personal story. The appeal is the creativity of blending various elements and the result is a fresh take that can resonate in larger ways than a traditional…
When I initially planned my spring quarter Embodied Ecopoetics workshop, the world was a different place. I offered my first installment of this workshop at Hugo House in the fall and was excited about the opportunity to offer it again…
Divorcing ourselves from meaning in writing can feel impossible. We get lost in our narratives and our characters, in the metaphors we’re creating and the incredible dialogue that we just can’t seem to fit into the story. But the freedom…
On February 28, Anthony Swofford, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Charles D’Ambrosio will kick off the second half of the 2019–20 Hugo Literary Series with new works on the theme of “Behind Closed Doors.” In a recent email exchange, Anthony and…
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,…
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…
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