THE CLASSROOM CORNER
We often hear from creative writing instructors that they find CRAFT to be very useful in the classroom. We listened, and we've made this corner as a quick resource, a curated list of some of our favorites. This list is NOT exhaustive—our pages are full of short fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, critical essays, interviews, roundups of all things literary, and more. This is a handy place to start!
We will continually update this list, so check back when making those syllabi, and for quick inspiration anytime.
Interview: Amelia Gray
The editors at CRAFT are thrilled to welcome Amelia Gray as the guest judge of our 2022 Amelia Gray 2K Contest, which is open to microfiction, flash fiction, and prose poetry pieces under two thousand words. Gray is a…
Conversations Between Friends: Sadaf Ferdowsi and Sarah Fay
In the winter of 2014, Sadaf Ferdowsi took a creative nonfiction class taught by Dr. Sarah Fay. A longtime contributor at The Paris Review, Fay taught her the interview form while instilling a healthy suspicion on the limits of…
Wisdom and Wisdom Teeth: Against Relatability
“The human life is individual; it is not unique.” —Bee Yang, via Kao Kalia Yang “There are two types of people in the world: them who have and them who will.” —Dad By Karen Babine • Over the years,…
Conversations Between Friends: Coco Picard and Sue Mell
Consider the personal effects one leaves behind, the way those objects, once laid out, recall the idiosyncratic logic of a life—is there more compelling inspiration for a novel? Authors Coco Picard and Sue Mell met through the BookEnds SUNY…
Hybrid Interview: Roisin Kiberd
Essay by Tyler Barton • Someone recently asked me why I set many short stories in the aughts. It’s true that I have a fascination with those years because they were my formative ones, ones in which I was not…
Against Twists
By Vera Kurian • How I wish I could go back and watch The Sixth Sense for the first time again, because when I first saw it, someone had already revealed the twist to me. In retrospect, it was…
Hybrid Interview: Cara Blue Adams
Essay by Sam Dilling • Cara Blue Adams’s debut short story collection, You Never Get It Back, is a nuanced portrait of love, loss, and longing. The stories follow the life of Kate Bishop, the central character, from childhood,…
Conversations Between Friends: Suzanne Roberts and Al Landwehr
In 1992, when I was twenty-two and nearing graduation with a degree in biology, I somehow talked my advisor into letting me replace technical writing with a course in fiction to fulfill my requirements. That’s how I met Al…
Art of the Opening: Microcosm to Macrocosm
How “The Ghost Birds” Spreads Its Wings after Taking the Leap By Albert Liau • How does a story begin to enchant us? When speaking with First Draft host Mitzi Rapkin, Richard Powers seems to suggest an answer: “You…
Interview: Alan Heathcock
CRAFT is thrilled to welcome Alan Heathcock as guest judge for our 2022 Short Fiction Prize. Heathcock is the author of Volt, a collection of short stories from 2011, and 40, a debut novel that publishes on August 2,…