Virgil Is a Poet

Follow Virgil Biggs as he tries to promote his new poetry collection, Bigg Olive, which was inspired by the local Target Superstore, among other things, in this humorous video.

The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody

by
Author: 
Alfred Corn
Published in 2008
by Copper Canyon Press

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.

May 5

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).

New Rivers Press Extends Story Contest Deadline

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words to be considered for the one-thousand-dollar prize and inclusion in an anthology, American Fiction: The Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, to be released in 2012 by the press.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.

Norwegian Wood

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

by
Author: 
John Gardner
Published in 1999
by W.W. Norton & Company

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.

A Writer's Workbook: Daily Exercises for the Writing Life

by
Author: 
Caroline Sharp
Published in 2002
by St. Martin’s Griffin

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.

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