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CRAFT ESSAYS, ELEMENTS, and TALKS

Image is a color photograph of a desk with a stack of old books next to an open notebook; title card for the new craft essay, "Her Own Elephant Outright," by Joseph Young.

Her Own Elephant Outright

February 21, 2024

  By Joseph Young • Writers are often told, whether by their instructors or about the internet in general, that in their finished stories, there should be no wasted words, no extraneous sentences, no details or lines of dialogue, that…

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Image is the book cover for SPLINTERS by Leslie Jamison; title card for the new hybrid interview with Yvonne Conza.

Hybrid Interview: Leslie Jamison

February 12, 2024

  Essay by Yvonne Conza • In Splinters, Leslie Jamison exposes a live nerve that makes vivid connections between emotions of motherhood, marriage, artistry, and selfhood. Alive and strengthened within this endeavor is Jamison’s iconic, singular awareness, that like her…

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Image is a color photograph of a window with white transparent curtains; title card for the new craft essay, "Insinuating Life: Diction and Syntax in the Short Story," by Rose Smith.

Insinuating Life: Diction and Syntax in the Short Story

January 24, 2024

  By Rose Smith • Here’s something I am curious about: when is a well-placed flourish, maybe even a flurry of adjectives and adverbs, perfect for a story, and when are the simplest of sentences called for? Two stories came…

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Image is a color photograph of a red door propped up against a rock wall; title card for the new critical essay, "Beyond Binary Thinking: Writing Cruelty Without Inflicting Harm" by Claire Polders.

Beyond Binary Thinking: Writing Cruelty Without Inflicting Harm

November 29, 2023

  By Claire Polders • Kinship I’m married to an American, have visited the United States in the past two decades on at least two dozen occasions, and have spent time in seven different states, but the rural and rather…

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Image is a color photograph of an open journal on a table; title card for the essay, "The Lonely Voice in Its Bathrobe: A Life of Letters" by Joan Frank.

The Lonely Voice in Its Bathrobe: A Life of Letters

September 20, 2023

  Excerpted from Late Work: A Literary Autobiography of Love, Loss, and What I Was Reading   By Joan Frank • What is it, finally, about letters? Why does this old-fashioned form, even maimed and shrunken, volleyed mostly through ether…

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Image shows a starry backdrop with pine trees in the foreground; title card for the new craft essay, "Life, the Universe, and Everything: A Primer on the Writing of Autofiction," by Sarah Twombly.

Life, the Universe, and Everything: A Primer on the Writing of Autofiction

August 23, 2023

  By Sarah Twombly • I am at work on a novel, and have been for more than a decade. It is autobiographical fiction, which is to say it’s about me, but also, it isn’t. The same way Einstein might…

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Image shows vintage photographs and cardstock overlapping on a table, a twig of pine in the foreground; title card for the new craft essay, "On Crafting the Memoir in Pieces," by Beth Kephart.

On Crafting the Memoir in Pieces

May 24, 2023

  By Beth Kephart • The writer of the memoir in pieces is an assembly artist—a hunter, a gatherer, an arranger, a culler, a keeper. They are not at work on a collection of essays loosely bound by voice, style,…

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Image shows the book cover for MEN I TRUST; title card for Erin Vachon's new hybrid interview with Tommi Parrish.

Hybrid Interview: Tommi Parrish

May 5, 2023

  Essay by Erin Vachon • The opening panel of Tommi Parrish’s brilliant graphic novel Men I Trust—out now from Fantagraphics—centers a clothesline, laundry drying in spare daylight. Parrish populates the world with bodies soon enough. Eliza is a single…

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Image shows the front face of an old cash register with dollar symbols on the buttons; title card for the new craft essay, "Inherited Language," by Nick Almeida.

Inherited Language

March 29, 2023

  By Nick Almeida • If you had grown up in my house, “You’re dollaring me to death” would forever echo in your head. The phrase is one of my mother’s favorites, inextricably linked to any requests for small amounts…

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Image is the book cover for CONVERSATIONS WITH BIRDS; title card for A. D. Carr's new hybrid interview with Priyanka Kumar.

Hybrid Interview: Priyanka Kumar

March 1, 2023

  Essay by A. D. Carr • “Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us.”  —Priyanka Kumar I didn’t start to have an interest in birds until my midthirties. No doubt this shift coincides with the transition from…

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