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Poet and educator Alfred Corn presents a guide to the art and science of poetic meter—the very foundation of writing (and reading) poetry. In ten progressive chapters, Corn covers everything from metrical variation and phonic echo to the basics of line and stanza.
Take a story you know extremely well, such as how my parents met, my first kiss, or the night I was born and fictionalize it by writing it from a distinct or unlikely point of view. For example, using the story how my parents met, write it from your father's perspective or from the perspective of the bartender at the bar where they met.
This week's fiction prompt comes from Joanna Hershon, author of three novels, including The German Bride (Ballantine, 2008).
The American Fiction Prize sponsored by New Rivers Press has pushed its deadline to June 1.
Fiction writers have an additional month to submit a story of up to 7,500 words to be considered for the one-thousand-dollar prize and inclusion in an anthology, American Fiction: The Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, to be released in 2012 by the press.
This year's judge is Croatian-born fiction writer and essayist Josip Novakovich, whose most recent book is the story-essay hybrid Three Deaths, published last year by Montreal press Snare Books. His story collections include Yolk and Salvation and Other Disasters, both published in the United States by Graywolf Press.
For complete American Fiction Prize guidelines, visit the New Rivers Press Web site.
The ABA elects a new president; a royal wedding book is published in seventy-two hours; a book of short stories based on video game characters; Australian women writers fight sexism by developing a new literary prize; and other news.
Despite a bestelling novel as its source—and a score that was composed by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood—the film adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, directed by Anh Hung Tran, has been met with decidedly mixed reviews that boil down to: The book is better. The movie was released in Japan and Russia last December and in the UK in March.
On Becoming a Novelist contains the wisdom accumulated during John Gardner's twenty-year career as a fiction writer and creative writing teacher. Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot.
With a foreword by Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, A Writer’s Workbook is a collection of thirty-two unique writing exercises that offer encouragement and guidance for generating ideas to anyone who writes.
Salman Rushdie weighs in on Pakistan; Alabama libraries suffer major damage in the recent tornadoes; Bui Chat is arrested in Vietnam after winning the International Freedom to Publish Prize; Argentina considers a writers' pension plan; and other news.
Will Allison, whose beautifully written debut novel, What You Have Left, was released in 2007, discusses his followup, Long Drive Home, published this month by Free Press.
P&W-SPONSORED WRITER: Collin Kelley
Poet Collin Kelley, author of Slow to Burn scheduled for re-release in July, blogs about his experience as a longtime R/W-sponsored writer.
My chapbook, Slow To Burn, launched in 2006 at the dearly missed galerieMC, owned and curated by my friend Marscha Cavaliere. With its gleaming floor, wall of windows and beautiful photography, galerieMC was a hip, central place to hold the first reading for Slow To Burn.
Forty people showed up on the afternoon of the event (not a bad turnout), but at the time I was very disappointed. I had been spoiled by the more than 150 people who turned out for the release of my first collection, Better To Travel, back in 2003 during the Atlanta Festival of the Book. I’ve grown wiser and more realistic over the past five years. If I get twenty-five people out to an event, I’m thrilled.
On any given day, a poetry reading is competing with four or five other events, soccer practice, traffic, weather, exhaustion. With entertainment now a click away on YouTube and poetry available for purchase at Amazon or to be read for free on dozens of online literary journals, live readings and signings are almost an anomaly. With Kindles and iPads, printed books are going the way of vinyl records.
There is still a place for readings and workshops, for human interaction with literature. Even if only four or five people show up, there is a rare opportunity to share knowledge, and communicate on a personal level. Use social media to build your audience, but don’t forget that face-to-face contact still has currency. All the Facebook fan pages, tweets on Twitter, and YouTube videos in the world can’t replace hearing an author perform their work live.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Atlanta is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
