Fall is the time of year when I most feel the pressure to get the words on the page and revise the stories that I allowed to languish all summer (or since last year). Maybe it’s because October is a…
I usually try to do what Elmore Leonard says. If plied with wine or office supplies, I might even admit to having a fantasy about him being my life coach, going to the gym with me, telling me how to…
Consider the Comic where what’s not on the page is as important as what is. So says comic artist and writer Scott McCloud in his deceptively simple book, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
Lori Ostlund’s debut novel After the Parade follows the progress of ESL instructor Aaron Englund as he builds a new life for himself in San Francisco and reflects on a small-town upbringing in Minnesota. Ostlund’s first collection of stories, The…
I completed the GrubStreet Novel Incubator Program this April and when I look back at that yearlong whirlwind, I still struggle to catch my breath. Most daunting was not learning so many (new to me) literary terms. Nor was it…
“What’s at stake here?” Sooner or later every fiction writer fields this question. Often the challenge appears as a single word – STAKES? – scrawled on a novel chapter or short story draft, plus or minus a coffee cup ring,…