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In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.
“It’s important to understand why the characters are writing to each other, what kind of language is particular to them, and what the form reveals or hides.” Mimi Lok contemplates the challenges and rewards of the epistolary form.
“Meditation is not a quick fix,” writes Mimi Lok. “It requires practice so that the mind gets used to stilling and quieting itself enough to listen.” In this Craft Capsule, Lok offers her method for cultivating stillness and silence.
“What needs to start? What needs to stop? What needs to change?” Mimi Lok shares an exercise that helps her persevere through difficult writing projects.
How do you know when to stop revising? Cameron Awkward-Rich shares a memorization exercise that helps him recognize when a poem is done.
Cameron Awkward-Rich weighs the ethical demands of elegy.
Cameron Awkward-Rich considers the possibilities and pitfalls of “after” poetry—poetry inspired by or borrowing from another writer’s work.
Cameron Awkward-Rich discusses turning archival research—traces of the past—into poems.
The author of the story collection Black Light finds the best writing lessons in the most unlikely places.
The author of Black Light explores the pleasures of cutting a manuscript down to size.
The author of the story collection Black Light explores the problem-solving benefits of writing in longhand.
The author of Black Light explores the daunting process of ordering a story collection.
The author of the story collection Black Light explores the generative power of “the weird.”
The author of If You Leave Me focuses not on a character’s likability but rather on making that character feel true.
The pleasures and pitfalls of writing a novel with multiple perspectives.
How does a writer tell a story set in another country during a time before she was even born? Research, research, research.
The desire to tell stories is one thing; finding the stories you want to tell is something else entirely.
A simple exercise to help lead you closer to the fiery core of your own, utterly unique, narrative style.
Simon Van Booy writes about opening your whole life to creativity.
Simon Van Booy considers writing as a process of instinct rather than thought.
Simon Van Booy puts inspiration and the writer’s realm of possibility into perspective.
Dan Beachy-Quick explores the infinite possibilities of poetry and the idea that metaphor can be a philosophy, and poetic craft a means of living a life.
Poet Dan Beachy-Quick considers rhyme, easily derided in workshop but able to make of the mind a wind-chime.
Dan Beachy-Quick imagines the poem as a peacock with tail outspread, and the phosphorescent circle on each feather an actual eye. The poem lets us see through every eye.
A poet and essayist recalls his personal introductions to poetry and its craft during his younger years.
Authors share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: Tayari Jones completes the journey of writing her novel An American Marriage.
