August 23, 2019
It Will Be Empowering: An Interview with David Mura, Author of A Stranger’s Journey; Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Writing
This post is the eighth in a months-long series that explores the topic of craft: what it is, how it has evolved, who has historically had access to it, and […]
September 25, 2018
Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – September
“I, too, dislike it.” Marianne Moore, “Poetry” But you don’t hate it. At least that’s what I hope you’ll discover as you read this column. I don’t want to convince […]
June 8, 2018
The Quest for the Enchanted Writing Tip
Many writers spend their whole careers chasing that enchanted writing tip that will make them extraordinary, and there’s certainly no shortage of craft advice. Some authors (I’m looking at you, […]
May 15, 2018
Finding the Magic Writing Ritual
Writers’ rituals are central to the way they work and are often treated as acts of spirituality or even seance. Haruki Murakami refers to his routine as “a form of […]
September 15, 2017
Reading Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark After Charlottesville
As someone who teaches literature post-Charlottesville (and everything else), I felt it was an important time to revisit Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination […]
July 26, 2017
NSFW: On “Hysterical Literature,” Leaves of Grass, and the Sexy Reading Movement
Somewhere in the foggy realm between performance art and porno, on a YouTube channel where a poem drives up page views, a woman reads aloud from a paperback book. She […]
June 30, 2016
Most People Are Not Your Friends
In the fifth grade, I was friends with a girl on my street. Best friends—though we did not wear those Be Fri / St Ends necklaces—a heart split in two—each […]
May 17, 2016
The Power of Ritual and Routine?
What power does ritual and routine hold in a writer’s life? It obviously depends on the writer. “Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition,” wrote W.H. Auden […]
May 13, 2016
Aloha, Mother
Toni Morrison, in her essay “The Site of Memory,” writes: All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like […]
December 11, 2014
Martyr Stories, Past and Present
Some of the most popular stories in medieval Europe were tales of saints and martyrs. Many of the hagiographies were essentially martyr stories as well, seeing as most early Christians were […]