February 5, 2019
Mixtape VI: The Aha Moment & When It Switches {On}
After taking some time away from this space to complete a few projects, I thought what better way to return than to share a new mixtape for a new […]
January 29, 2019
On Subtlety and Meaning in Fiction
When I was a freshman in college, I took my first creative writing class, a small two week workshop that was part of a summer study abroad program. For the […]
January 25, 2019
THE PAGE AS A VISUAL FIELD: NEW BOOKS BY ASIYA WADUD, GRACIE LEAVITT, & EVE EWING
IN A RECENT ISSUE OF THE AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW, Carol Ann Johnston notes that “The early avant-garde’s play with poetic language as visual art grasped the change in poetic emphasis […]
January 23, 2019
On Borges’s “The Secret Miracle”
For many writers, nothing is more exciting than seeing in some work of fiction, be it a short story or a novel or a play or even a movie, a […]
January 16, 2019
On the Creative Value of Unproductive Time
There’s a scene in the fifth episode of the third season of Mad Men in which Lane Pryce, one of the new managers in charge of the company’s finances, complains […]
January 11, 2019
On the Three-Act Structure
One of the central lessons I learned back when I was still attempting to become a screenwriter as well as a fiction writer (something I’ve discussed on this blog a […]
January 3, 2019
Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – January
“Education is not the filling of a pail,” reads the sign above my colleague’s desk, “but the lighting of a fire.” These lines—often attributed to the poet W. B. Yeats—happen […]
December 31, 2018
Devils, Unicorns, and Fever Dreams: My 2018 Reading List
As 2018 drew to a close and the literary internet was flooded with “Best of 2018” book lists, I noticed a fair amount of backlash against these lists—namely, that they […]
December 28, 2018
On Rereading Books
Each year, as I look over my list of all the books I’ve read (and listened to) in the past year, I always take note of the books I chose […]
December 19, 2018
On Character Motivation: The Personal vs The Political
Years ago, when I was still interested in being a screenwriter as well as a novelist (the Dark Ages of my literary life), I heard a screenwriting teacher say during […]
December 18, 2018
What Special Ed Has to Teach Ed: Speaking With the Woman Who Taught Me To Read When No One Else Could
My own struggle with learning disabilities left me with very strong feelings on education. With the help of one very brilliant and patient woman, Veronica Russo, I was given the […]
December 13, 2018
On Eckes, Harvey and Myles
It sounds like a middling 70’s folk rock act, right? Maybe in some alternate universe it is a middling 70’s folk rock act, but in my own universe it’s been […]