The Time Is Now
Follow in the dactylic footsteps of Homer, leave everyone behind for a solo journey, or report the breaking news of your own life—three prompts to help start your writing off on a great adventure.
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Follow in the dactylic footsteps of Homer, leave everyone behind for a solo journey, or report the breaking news of your own life—three prompts to help start your writing off on a great adventure.
Writing prompts and exercises in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction employing kindness, strange connections, and the timeless wisdom of Special Agent Dale Cooper.
The assistant poetry editor of Able Muse offers his thoughts on coming to terms with the inevitability—and impersonality—of rejection in the world of literary magazines.
Even in translation, Norwegian author Per Petterson’s prose is intensely rhythmic and lyrical, evoking something akin to the oral tradition of Appalachian storytelling.
Iowa isn’t just the Writers’ Workshop. A native Iowan talks about how she learned to capture the true nature of her home state, and the stoic people who live there, in her writing.
A personal and in-depth look at the life and poetry of John Berryman, with particular focus on The Dream Songs.
A writer and editor shares her thoughts, as well as lessons learned from authors such as Junot Díaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Celeste Ng, on writing of and from a culture that may be foreign to the reader: what do we explain, italicize, or translate? How do we navigate the divide between the ethnicity of a writer or character and that of her audience?
A case for balancing action with introspection in fiction, in order to avoid “gumming up the gears of your story.”
After finding him paging through her diary, a mother confronts the ethical and emotional struggles of writing about her son’s traumatic brain injury.
An author extols the importance of keeping rejection in perspective, with a reminder that even classic books first struggled to find a home.