Writing process
Familiarity breeds….
I’m in the process of editing my manuscript, OUR DAILY BREAD, which will be published in the fall. Now, I’ve read this manuscript probably thirty times. My Best Beloved, who is also my first reader, has probably read it five times. My agent has read it at least once. My editor has read it a…
Read MorePaul Muldoon — A Poet in the Prison
Last week, Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize and T.S. Elliot Prize winning poet and poetry editor of the New Yorker, came to visit the weekly class I teach at a prison here in New Jersey. The classroom is in the basement of the prison. Bright primary-colored squares on the floor tiles, and pale blue walls strive…
Read MoreA Third Possibility
People frequently ask me, “Where did you go to college?” and some look as though I’ve just walloped them in the face with a flounder when I reply, “I didn’t go to college.” How can that be, I see them thinking, you’re a published author. Yeah. And in this era of nearly mandatory MFAs, I…
Read More10 Hard truths about writing
Recently, a student told me she was too scatterbrained to write her novel without help, and that she needed someone to crack the whip, set deadlines, help her focus, etc. She said she needed an editor or a partner, or both. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that sort of thing from writing students.…
Read MoreFame and fortune — step right up!
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” — William Wordsworth Someone I’ve never met recently accused me (via, not surprisingly, an anonymous blog comment somewhere) of being a liar and a cynic because I lead monthly creative writing workshops. This person stated I was essentially conning people, making money by offering false hope…
Read MoreSlipping past the troll
Do you remember the Scandinavian beastie of folktale known as the Troll? Trolls often guard bridges and won’t let you cross until you’ve paid them (or perhaps they won’t let you pass at all, but will simply eat you!). They are much larger than humans and particularly ugly. They are frequently said to be extremely…
Read MoreWhat 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…
Read MoreA 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…
Read MoreDon'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…
Read MoreTell me what you want
Robert Olen Butler, in his book FROM WHERE YOU DREAM, says the one thing missing from almost every student manuscript he reads is a sense, in the beginning of the work, of what the main character yearns for. He says fiction is “the art form of human yearning” and that writers needs to place an…
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