Writing Tip by Felice Picano

In the past few years I’ve begun to tune in to the wavelengths of the world — like a radio receiver — and now strangers tell me their lives.  I don’t know who they are until I’ve let them use me to narrate.  I think it began with my discovery of the unsolved murder in [...]

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Writing Tip by Sholeh Wolpe

Five nails to hammer into your writing desk: –A poem is a sauce you simmer and simmer until your reach its potent and aromatic essence.  This you do with editing.  Learn to edit your work.  It’s an art.  It’s a skill. –Use metaphors to render the most ordinary into extraordinary. –Jack Gilbert in his poem, [...]

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Writing tip by Peter Gadol

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 [...]

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Writing Tip by Sarah Maclay

That Hemingway Thing “Just write one true thing . . .” I can’t tell you how many times this has gotten me out of a jam.  And that’s “true” with a small t.  Try a Big T truth and this will have the opposite effect:  it’ll shut you down.  Plus it will probably be abstract, [...]

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Writing Tip by Samantha Dunn Camp

Getting into the nitty-gritty of what makes us tick is not something that comes easily, even for those who are inclined to want to do it. It seems we naturally resist examining why we are the way we are; we want to avoid looking at our contradictions, the places where we don’t make sense. That, [...]

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Writing Tip by Janet Sternburg

This is about the old chestnut: “Do you write every day?” And if you answer, “yes,” then chances are you’ll hear another old chestnut: “What discipline you must have!” Nope. It’s not discipline. I always think of discipline as beating yourself on the shoulders with a stick. It’s actually a writer’s “trick.” Let yourself fall [...]

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Writing Tip by Lisa Teasley

Take Notes When it comes to fiction, my primary discipline, I’m brought to the page by character: his or her peculiarities, vulnerabilities, self-perceived shortcomings, and conflicts with others.   If I’m stuck in any way with narrative flow, I’ll take notes on the character’s history, whims, scuffles, crises, and then come back to the page fresh [...]

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Writing Tip by Ching-In Chen

Write Against Yourself I’m attracted to routine — the daily act of sitting down with my cup of tea and my attempt at cultivating a daily writing practice.   But I easily revert back to writing poems that feel like a familiar place where I might be turning around in a circle over and over again [...]

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Writing Tip by Eric Gutierrez

That throbbing cursor at the top of an empty computer screen at the beginning of a new tale is the Medusa that can often turn imagination into stone.   To get past not getting started I still use that old trick of writing the last sentence first, regardless of whether I’m writing fiction or non-fiction. If [...]

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Writing Tip by Kelly Hayes-Raitt

Discover your assets! With no income and possessing only a desire to complete a book about my work with Iraqi refugees, I realized my greatest albatross is really my greatest asset:  my house.  I decided to take a year and rent out my home while I travel, live elsewhere for free – and write.  I [...]

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