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Think about big and small regrets you have in your life—things you wish you had done, people you wish you had treated better, directions you wish you'd gone. Draw a chart that represents a hierarchy of your regrets. It can be simple or decorative, straightforward or complex. Then write an essay that explores what you see when you look at it.
Conjure someone you haven't seen or talked to in over ten years. Imagine you receive a phone call from this person today. Why are they calling? What do they want? Write a story about it.
The Millions on the death of Southern Literature; novelist A. L. Kennedy explains why she hates the myth of the suffering artist; Robert Lowell's New York City apartment is for sale; and other news.
Take a walk that you know well—through your neighborhood, around the block where you work, or your route to the train or bus. Study this familiar landscape carefully, and try to find a detail that you hadn’t noticed before—a piece of graffiti, a certain row of trees, the pattern in which the sidewalk is cracked. Write about this new observation, small as it may be, starting with physical description and then allowing your thoughts to wander.
The website Brain Pickings posted a video version of Kurt Vonnegut's eight tips for how to write a great short story. Choose a draft of one of your unfinished stories and apply Vonnegut's advice during the revision process.
Meg Wolitzer examines gender disparity in literary fiction; Ann Patchett named one of Time magazine's most influential people in the world; the Wall Street Journal explores the fascination many writers have held for Eastern philosophy, including J. D. Salinger's devotion to Swami Nikhilananda; and other news.
In honor of National Poetry Month, commit to memorizing one poem a week during April. Allow the experience of inhabiting each poem in this way feed your own poetry.
Author Harry Crews passed away yesterday in Florida; England's Handspring Puppet Company has adapted Ted Hughes's famous poetry collection, Crow; Edan Lepucki dives into the MFA debate; and other news.
Seminal feminist poet Adrienne Rich passed away yesterday at age eighty-two; Fast Company explores how the constraints created by Apple for authors and publishers using its iBookstore and App Store may hamper creativity; the Millions looks at the life and work of Joe Brainard; and other news.
Pioneering feminist poet Adrienne Rich, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of eighty-two, reads her poem "What Kind of Times Are These?" at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
