A Monstrous Silence: Caretaking and Writing in the Presence of Death
The author of Deadheading & Other Stories recounts how caring for her dying mother-in-law affected her writing life and ultimately shaped her book.
Department: The Literary Life
Dear Memory: On Creative Struggle, Stretching, and Asking for Help
The author reflects on the struggle to give shape to an intensely personal book—Dear Memory: Letters On Writing, Silence, and Grief—and discusses how reaching out to fellow writers helped her finish her manuscript.
The Time Is Now: Writing Prompts and Exercises
Write three poems in the form of letters addressed to parents, grandparents, and an emotion; a fiction story set during holiday festivities; or a list essay about gratitude and expectation.
Lucia Berlin: My Mentor in Being an Outsider
The author reflects on finding a mentor in fellow literary outsider Lucia Berlin, long before Berlin’s fame.
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Entering Through the Side Door: A Path for Approaching Your Truth in Difficult Material
The author reflects on her complicated pregnancy and subsequent abortion—experiences that shaped her first book, the memoir Poor Your Soul—and the ways writers explore the periphery of events to find the beating heart of their subjects.
Losing My Manuscript: On Almost Giving Up
After her notebooks and journals were stolen, a memoirist revisits the stories of famous writers who lost their own work and describes how losing her notes forced her to re-envision her first book, Low Country, published in April.
Lost in the Weeds: In Praise of Wild Things—in the Garden and in Writing
A poet discovers a newfound appreciation for the dandelion, blackberry vines, and globes of white clover that encroach on her garden, finding an inspiring metaphor for the wild things waiting to be unearthed in her own unfinished drafts.
The Time Is Now: Writing Prompts and Exercises
Write a poem that contemplates the impact you want to make as a writer, a story about a culture shift in a family, or an essay about a simple word and its presence in your life.
Endless Work: The Responsibilities and Pleasures of Translation
The author examines her personal relationship to the professional work of translation, forms of responsibility unique to the genre, and the complex notion of translation as a labor of love.
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Infertile & Querying: Struggling to Conceive While Seeking Representation
The author of the forthcoming novel At Sea describes her struggle to get an agent and conceive a child and meditates on the expectations of being both a mother and an author.
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