Craft Musings on Beginnings and More, from Our Editors
Three of our editors on the craft of beginnings and more
On Craft
Hawks and Walkaways: How Nature Can Aid Revision
“Not everyone will walk away from a computer into the vast outdoors and find help from a hawk. But over time, these ‘focused walkaways,’ which were first unexpected distractions, have become a scheduled part of my practice, my discipline.”
Getting Away with It: Epistolary Fiction
The epistolary toolkit is a rich and varied one—it insists on the reader’s interpretive participation, and offers powerful methods for developing character and setting and for playing with the progression of time. So: what, supposedly, is wrong with it?
Poetry in Fiction Workshop: Everything Is the Same, Everything Is Not the Same
Summer Assistant Editor Rome Hernández Morgan explores the ways poets can learn from the craft of fiction.
Are You Gonna Go My Way? The Inclusiveness of Second Person
What makes second-person narration so compelling? What makes it so polarizing? In this essay, Jen Michalski reflects on the magnetic pull of “you.”
Elliston Poet-in-Residence Spotlight: Brian Teare
We reflect on Elliston Poet-in-Residence Brian Teare’s vivid call for “poetry as fieldwork.”
In Defense of Wish Fulfillment & Romantic Fantasy
What can romance teach us about the space between “improbable” and “impossible”?
Trapdoors & Lit Fuses: How We End Our Poems
How do we choose a poem’s final, resounding lines?
On Writing in a Secondary Genre
Working across genres can be intimidating for those who write and publish in mostly one genre. Cindy Juyoung Ok, SJ Sindu, Philip Metres, and Kathryn Nuernberger share insights.
Poetry at the Museum
What draws us, as writers, to museums, exhibits, and galleries? What is it about these spaces—real or imagined—that makes us curators in our own work?