September 30, 2019
Why We Should Call it Art
There’s a tendency in the writing community to be suspicious of the word “art.” For a lot of people, the word is pretentious, a grandiose attempt to elevate our writing […]
March 29, 2018
On Writing, Workshop & Mental Health: A Roundtable (Part 1)
The following began as a conversation on Twitter initiated by this tweet by Emma Bolden, which opened up a larger conversation about the writing life, workshop experiences, and how we deal […]
August 3, 2017
Literary Firsts & Worsts
A writer approached me after my workshop at Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator event to tell me this was the first writing conference she’d ever attended. Her comment got me thinking of […]
December 13, 2016
It Means You Are Alive
As far as I can remember, I’ve never cried during a writing workshop. Unless you count the summer arts camp I attended as a teenager, I can’t recall being in […]
July 20, 2015
Poetry and Play (Part I)
When I was in Amsterdam earlier this summer, the Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga came up in multiple conversations about poetry; more specifically, his 1938 book Homo Ludens: Proeve […]
July 10, 2012
Creative Exigency, Exhilaration, Exhaustion, and Expansion: A Postscript on the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops
I’ll say it: I’m exhausted. I spent 22 days in Gambier, Ohio, first as faculty for the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and then for the KR Young Writers Workshop, in […]
September 21, 2010
Wishes and Whips
What is wrong with books? What is wrong with me that I so love reading about what’s wrong with the stuff I love? When I see links cropping up on […]