Ten Questions for Katie Yee
“I think every writer carries with them someone they wish they could’ve told all their stories to.” —Katie Yee, author of Maggie; Or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
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Genre: Fiction
Victoria Redel on Narrative Collage and Structure
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In this 2021 virtual craft talk hosted by the Stokes Center for Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama, author and professor Victoria Redel speaks about narrative structure and the use of collage in fiction and how fragmented, nonlinear storytelling can deepen emotional impact and thematic complexity.
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Using Time to Create Emotional Tension in Fiction
The author of Restitution (Regal House Publishing, September 2025) recommends writers use time as a tool to shape the emotional stakes of novels.
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Guadalupe Nettel, Ayşegül Savaş, and Maylis de Kerangal on Short Stories
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In this Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination event, Guadalupe Nettel, Ayşegül Savaş, and Maylis de Kerangal talk about their recent story collections and how short story collections are received in the current publishing industry. Savaş’s first story collection, Long Distance, is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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Jonathan Escoffery: If I Survive You
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In this 2022 Books Are Magic event, Jonathan Escoffery discusses his debut story collection, If I Survive You (MCD, 2022), and how he explores themes of identity, immigration, and belonging through storytelling in a conversation with novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn. Escoffery introduces Jemimah Wei in “First Fiction 2025” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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Crisis Moment
In the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure directed by Ruben Östlund, a family on a ski vacation in the French Alps has a scare when a controlled avalanche threatens the lodge where they are staying and the father runs away from the oncoming snow, leaving behind his wife and two young children. All remain safe but the event causes tension in their marriage. Over dinner with friends, they discuss how in moments of crisis one would hope to do the heroic thing, but one never really knows until something actually happens. Write a short story that begins with an intense and startling event and build your story around each character’s response. What sorts of personality traits are revealed in the aftermath? You might play around with incorporating different characters’ perspectives or versions of what happened to provide tension.
Ten Questions for Issa Quincy
“I tend to work across these different forms, on different projects at the same time.” —Issa Quincy, author of Absence
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Washington Black trailer
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Watch the trailer for Washington Black, a Hulu series adaptation of the 2018 novel of the same name by Esi Edugyan. The series, which stars Eddie Karanja, Ernest Kingsley Jr., Tom Ellis, Iola Evans, and Sterling K. Brown, follows the life of an enslaved boy who flees the sugar plantation in Barbados where he was born.
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Neuro-plasticky
Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to adapt, grow, and evolve throughout our lives by forming new neural connections. But what about actual plastics in the brain? While past studies have presented findings that our bodies are increasingly becoming filled with microplastics, more recent research has shown that a significant amount of these plastics are accumulating in the brain—possibly an average of an entire spoon’s worth. This week write a short story that postulates on the effects of this biological issue. The premise may lend itself naturally to a dystopian, apocalyptic story of sci-fi horror, but are there other elements and genres that you can experiment with, such as satire, romance, or mystery?
Aaron John Curtis and Jon Hickey
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In this Bay Area Book Festival event featuring Native debut authors, Jon Hickey reads from his novel, Big Chief (Simon & Schuster, 2025), and Aaron John Curtis reads from his novel, Old School Indian (Hillman Grad Books, 2025), followed by a discussion moderated by Greg Sarris on the Native experience through modern political and personal struggles. Curtis and Hickey are featured in “First Fiction 2025” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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