SHORT SHARP SHOCK: Plays on the Short Form in Prose & Verse

Each workshop begins the same. Before doing anything, I stride to the whiteboard and write I didn’t have time to write you a short letter today, so I had to write you a long one instead

SAY IT AGAIN: The Dylan Thomas Effect in Prose and Verse

Perhaps if you were a punk like me with a jones for catchy Ramones hooks, you did what any opinionated teen does when trying to get through high school English – you prattled on about lyrics, their deeper meaning, and why formal poetry had nothing on suffering compared to your favorite band

BAD NEWS: What Happens While You’re Busy Making Other Plans

This is not a happy column. I warn you.

It starts with a call. Not one of those 3am jobs we may use from time to time in our work, but rather the welcoming kind that begins with a familiar hey you greeting followed by an impish are you done writing yet ask. It’s the best friend. Or as I have come to think of her: The Distraction. And her timing couldn’t be better insofar as yours truly was in that awful light of creative indecision. Heck ...

CAUSE/EFFECT: Possibility and Consequence in Story and Verse

Suppose one day you come home to an empty apartment

ORDINARY PLACES:  Or How Flannery O’Connor Will Guide You Home

For almost any writer, place (or setting) is a complicated affair