ARCHIVE FOR Craft Advice

I'm amazed by writers who stop reading in their genre while writing their own books. The majority of them seem to be worried about becoming overly influenced by the voice, themes and even plot of the book they're reading.

Personally, I can't imagine not reading fiction for the many years it takes me to complete a novel. And in terms of being influenced: I'm actively looking for inspiration and ideas. I want to be influenced.

During this time when our normal writing routines (alongside most other routines!) have been disrupted, we’re sharing short videos designed to help us all get unstuck, move forward, or find a new direction for our writing projects.

In Episode 5 of our "Write On Prompts" video series, GrubStreet Instructor Samantha Shanley shares a prompt designed to help you discover poignant, funny, or even gorgeous moments in your writing (especially when working on difficult material). 

Find more of these videos in the coming weeks on Instagram and inside our newsletters. Enjoy!  

(This video features the song ...

During this time when our normal writing routines (alongside most other routines!) have been disrupted, we’re sharing short videos designed to help us all get unstuck, move forward, or find a new direction for our writing projects.

In Episode 4 of our "Write On Prompts" video series, GrubStreet Instructor Shelby Kinney-Lang shares a prompt about how to write through anxiety that he recently used on a new essay. You can read his essay inspired by this prompt over at Green Mountain Review. 

Find more of these videos in the coming weeks on Instagram and inside our newsletters. Enjoy! 

(This video ...

To help keep our spirits up and our words flowing, we're sharing Muse and the Marketplace keynote talks and special event videos from GrubStreet's past in a series called "From the Grub Archive." This week, we're sharing a keynote video by Stacey D'Erasmo. 

The title alone of Stacey D'Erasmo's brilliantly erudite 2019 keynote speech — "Writing in a Time of Upheaval" — feels urgently relevant to us right now in the midst of a global pandemic. D’Erasmo’s talk is a careful and illuminating close-reading of how the work of writers and artists like Gwendolyn ...

By Katrin Schumann

Last month, feeling unmoored and wanting to build community during self-isolation, I launched something I called #fivefreepages, in which I offered to critique five pages at the beginning of a nonfiction book or novel, free of charge