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.
From the Magazine
Ampersand Extra: Jesse Browner Interview
Ampersand hosts Kevin Larimer and Melissa Faliveno sit down with Jesse Browner, the author of How Did I Get Here? Making Peace With the Road Not Taken, published this month by Harper Wave, to talk about the new book and the decisions we...
Preparing for the Worst: The Negatively Framed Outline
Pessimism can be a writer’s best friend: Fiction writer Benjamin Percy explores how the worst-case scenario can bring out the best in a story.
Why We Write: San Francisco 2015
Melissa Faliveno, associate editor of Poets & Writers Magazine, leads a conversation with authors Wendy Lesser, Yiyun Li, Alejandro Murguia, D. A. Powell, and Michelle Tea about the personal, political, and professional reasons we...
Murakami and Adichie Among Time’s Most Influential People, The Book of Joy, and More
The right kind of day job for a writer; GIF quotes app; a new reading of L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time; and other news.
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The Time Is Now
Writing prompts and exercises in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction employing kindness, strange connections, and the timeless wisdom of Special Agent Dale Cooper.
Submission Blitz: Finding Courage at a Writers Conference
In response to the pervasive gender disparity in publishing, the Los Angeles–based group Women Who Submit encourages women writers to gather together and submit their work to magazines, and to celebrate the often intimidating process of sending work out into the world.
Be Bold, Be Free, Be Truthful
At the Sewall House retreat in Island Falls, Maine, the practice of yoga opens up new possibilities in the craft of writing.
Feckless Pondering: Emotional Beats and the Art of Repose
A case for balancing action with introspection in fiction, in order to avoid “gumming up the gears of your story.”
Art Vs. Life: A Quarrel Between David Shields and Caleb Powell
What comes first—the human or the writer? David Shields and Caleb Powell discuss the origins and collaborative process behind the four-day argument about life and art that became their new book (and film), I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel.