The Time Is Now
Compose a poem from a stranger’s perspective, unlock your unconscious with “automatic writing,” or create your own astrological forecast—three prompts to help you reach new depths in your writing.
Tags: creative process
Adjunct Anxiety: Teaching, Writing, Constantly Striving
Adjuncting can be difficult, even for those who love teaching writing. A writer and teacher recounts the challenges of her adjunct experiences after graduating with an MFA and publishing her first book.
How to Impress a Literary Agent
Whether it’s simply spelling a name correctly in a query letter or proposing something new, advice for catching an agent’s eye can range from the obvious to the surprisingly counter-intuitive. Here, six agents speak candidly about what stands out to them.
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.
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.
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...
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...
Art vs. Life, a Quarrel: San Francisco 2015
David Shields and Caleb Powell, authors of I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel, reignite the age-old debate about the lives of artists as they attempt to disturb preconceived divisions between reality and fiction, life and art.
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.
Rethinking Rejection: Notes from the Slush Pile
The assistant poetry editor of Able Muse offers his thoughts on coming to terms with the inevitability—and impersonality—of rejection in the world of literary magazines.
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