Defining Successful Poets, Patient Prose, and More
Screenwriter and director Michael Mann launches publishing imprint; on the “misunderstood” poet Stevie Smith; Qatari poet released from prison; and other news.
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From the Magazine
Following the Mysteries: An Interview With Jhumpa Lahiri
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri talks with translator Ann Goldstein about her decision to write her new book, In Other Words, in Italian; the search for freedom and happiness; and the mysteries of creativity, art, and life.
Let Them Feed You: Practical Advice for First-Time Colonists
Novelist and seasoned colonist Alexander Chee shares valuable advice for writers embarking on their first writers retreat.
The Idea of Happiness: Report From Literary Denmark
In a continuing series examining the lives of writers in international writing communities, contributing editor Stephen Morison Jr. spends time with three authors in Denmark to explore the country’s literary scene, and the language of happiness.
The Time Is Now: Writing Prompts and Exercises
Explore the emotions of color, shout your strongest feelings, and write for a vending machine—three prompts to ignite the creative process.
Snowstorm Books, Wallace Stegner Novel Adaptation, and More
The endurance of bad similes; Joyce Carol Oates interviewed; former New Republic editor launching new journal with Steve Jobs’s widow; and other news.
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Project Empathy: Facing Difficult Material
An accomplished novelist and memoirist offers advice on how to write creative nonfiction with empathy and respect.
Futuristic Writing Desk: A Special Form of History
Recounting a harrowing trek up Texas’s Enchanted Rock with his wife, a writer details the particularly difficult task of placing yourself in time, and then learning to let time go.
The Art of Biography: Falling In and Out of Love
An author and Guggenheim fellow details her journey in writing a biography of radical poet Lola Ridge.
Dangerous Writing: Go to Your Battlefield
“By forcing the writer to look at an event that changed her life, she has to come to terms with something that is intimate.” A prolific author and teacher explores the process of facing the deepest, heaviest, and saddest parts of ourselves in order to write our innermost truths.