A revision prompt: Go back through any story you’ve done (or essay or whatever) and highlight every simile or metaphor. Usually our first attempts at these are pat—using the borrowed language dead with, as Shklovsky points out (in the great book for writers “Theory of Prose”), the weight of familiarity. Say you’ve written a clunker [...]
Archive for the ‘MFA Faculty’ Category
Writing Prompt by Rob Roberge
Posted in Fiction, MFA Faculty, writers, Writing prompts on May 3, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Writing Prompt by Rob Roberge
Posted in Fiction, MFA Faculty, writers, Writing prompts on April 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I’m a great believer in forced limitations—stories/modes of composition that have some pre-enforced limitation that requires us to find creative and unique ways out of a bind (as writing is, among other things, a form of creative problem-solving). Lipograms, formal poetry, all these things tend to spur creativity. So, with that in mind, a writing [...]
Writing tip by Peter Gadol
Posted in MFA Faculty, writers, Writing Tip on April 19, 2010 | 1 Comment »
When I was a senior in high school, I was part of a fortunate group who got to meet with Isaac Bashevis Singer–he would have been about eighty–and he offered this advice (I’m paraphrasing): All of you are what, seventeen, eighteen? And you are being told, Write what you know. Write what you know-but what [...]
Writing Prompt by Alistair McCartney!
Posted in Fiction, MFA Faculty, writers, Writing prompts on January 25, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Writing Prompt: The Pitiless In Volume One of his collected letters, Gustave Flaubert wrote that “the highest and most difficult achievement of Art is not to make us laugh or cry, nor to arouse lust or rage, but to do what nature does—that is, to set us dreaming.” He went on to say that [...]
Writing Tip by Suzanne Lummis
Posted in Los Angeles, MFA Faculty, Poetry, writers, Writing process and tips, Writing Tip on December 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Here, the object is to enrich the language of your poetry and perhaps also trick yourself into writing a poem you wouldn’t have otherwise. Sometimes it’s a poem your subconscious has been holding in its storage unit – you just needed the right key. Open a dictionary at random, here and there, chose sensory, evocative [...]
Writing Prompt from Gail Wronsky
Posted in Fiction, MFA Faculty, Poetry, writers, Writing prompts on November 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Beauty of Collisions Sometimes you need to bang some very different things up against each other in order to make the sparks of poetry fly. It’s a way of “by indirection find(ing) direction out” (Shakespeare’s phrase) or of “tell(ing) the truth but tell(ing) it slant” (Emily Dickinson’s). Sometimes when you approach a thing directly, [...]
Writing Prompt from Ron Koertge
Posted in Fiction, Los Angeles, MFA Faculty, Poetry, writers, Writing prompts on October 12, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I play cards with a few friends and when it’s Laurie’s turn to deal she always says, “Everybody loves blackjack.” Well, everybody loves haiku, too. Any kid can count out seventeen syllables (5-7-5) and I quickly take away the demands of traditional haiku (the frog, the pond, the inevitable moon) and ask them to write [...]
