Article Archive: Special Section

In a season of disappointment while trying to conceive, the author of How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder reconnects with creativity at the Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers. 

Amid political turmoil and momentous life changes, a retreat at the Blue Mountain Center gives the author of The Archer inspiring ideas about how to be an artist—even without writing any new pages.

Fairy tales are built on their own enchanting associative logic. A maestro of magical realism explores what writers can unlock when they let readers leap between a story’s plot points—and where such a trail of breadcrumbs can lead.

The best historical fiction “vibrates with a past that is in the present” and reveals the unseen in stories thought we knew—craft skills any writer can bring to their work.

The editor of Diagram highlights five literary magazines with unexpected ambitions, including a celebration of sentence-long narratives and a journal dedicated to revenge.

When feeling beaten by your manuscript, come back to the page with humility and curiosity, and remember the ways that this work feeds you.