“Can creative writing be taught?” asks Francine Prose in the first sentence of Reading Like a Writer as she reflects on the people who have helped her become a better writer. The author, critic, and professor of literature guides readers through the tools of great writers—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, ZZ Packer—and breaks down elements of the craft into chapters such as “Words,” “Sentences,” “Dialogue,” “Gesture,” and “Details.” Mixing personal anecdotes with extensive passages from literature’s most celebrated works, Prose reminds readers to pay attention to words, the foundation of all creative writing. “Like most—maybe all—writers, I learned to write by writing, and by example, by reading books,” says Prose.
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.