What we talk about when we talk about editors

I teach creative writing in a men’s prison, at monthly workshops in Princeton, and via email.  I’ve taught at universities and writers’ conferences.  Everywhere I teach, and no matter whom I teach, at some point the subject of editors inevitably pops up. I mentioned to a student recently that part of my job as a…

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A City of Crumpled Paper

During my prison writing class this week, one of my students approached me and said he wanted to talk. Like all the men, he wears khaki scrubs and enormous khaki lace-up hiking boots (which seems a rather cruel joke).  Like most of the men, he towers above me.  I always forget how short I am…

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Don't avert your eyes

Yesterday, one of my creative writing students popped by and told me she had finished writing an essay, but she wasn’t going to put it up on her brand new blog because it was too dark. She is a food writer, and writes essays so succulent, so delicious the words melt on your tongue.  This…

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Don't worry about the other horses.

I recently had an email exchange with an artist whose work I admire greatly.  She’s an accomplished photographer whose work, in recent times, she feels is getting lost in the swamp.  It seems everybody with an eyeball is snapping away with their digital cameras and calling themselves professional photographers these days, just like everybody with…

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