Personal Essay
Stick Figures
12Grandmother. Ten years old and I’m kneeling on the carpet next to her. She smells like flowers with English Garden names: peony, jasmine, narcissus; she smells like black and white movies, where heroines smoke PallMalls like they mean it. She grips the pins between smudged red lips, her breath coming in emphysematic wheezes, moving on…
Read MoreProof of Life
There is a tiny person under my roof this morning. She arrived two days ago, and I fussed and worried and sterilized and kept the appropriate social distance, until finally her mother placed her gently in my arms. I cannot adequately describe how it felt to hold another human close, after the terrible, endless Covid…
Read MoreMy Blessed Boy on the Streets…and my Teacher of all Things Good
Previously Published in U.S. Catholic. A sometimes lonely leftover phone booth stands on a street corner in Portland, Oregon. When a street person feels so inclined, he or she can use the one-time pay phone, now free of charge, to call friends and/or family anywhere in the world. And inside the phone booth, profound words…
Read MoreInterview: Barbara Henning Discusses “Prompt Book” and Finding the Inspiration to Write
If you’re a writer looking for prompts, inspiration, or lessons on literary movements, then writers.com instructor Barbara Henning‘s new book Prompt Book (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing, 2021) is your solution. Naturally, we were curious about how an author goes about collecting and publishing a book of prompts. Below is our full interview with Barbara on Prompt Book…
Read MoreProse vs. Poetry: Their Differences and Overlaps
The difference between prose and poetry seems easy to explain: one has blocks of text and fully-fleshed characters, the other has line breaks and pretty words. That’s it, right? Despite their visual quirks, prose and poetry share many similarities: prose can be musical, poetry can have plots and characters, and both are millennia-old traditions. As…
Read MoreHow to Avoid Clichés in Writing
I hope this isn’t unoriginal, but reading clichés in writing make me feel like I’ve woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Really, clichés in writing are a dime a dozen. It’s language that, quite frankly, is dead as a doornail. I hope I’m not beating a dead horse. Clichés are everywhere. They’re common parts of the…
Read MoreCreative Nonfiction Writing Classes Online: 8 Things to Know
A great way to improve your writing, or even just to hold yourself accountable to writing creative nonfiction, is to take creative nonfiction writing classes online. If you haven’t taken creative nonfiction writing classes online before, though, it can be difficult to know if a particular creative nonfiction writing class is the right fit for…
Read MoreHow to Read Prose: Close Reading Strategies for Prose Writers
In this article, we’ll give you strategies to begin reading prose like a writer. We’ll discuss applying close reading strategies to prose: that is, to anything that isn’t written in verse, from short stories to novels to memoirs and more. This article is third in our series on how to read like a writer—in other…
Read MoreConcise Writing: How to Omit Needless Words
This article is all about concise writing, summed up in the timeless phrase “Omit needless words.” We’ll examine some of the best advice on writing concisely, define what concise writing is and isn’t, and describe 11 writing habits that encourage concision. “Omit Needless Words” and The Elements of Style In 1920, William Strunk Jr. published…
Read More10 Important Literary Devices in Prose: Examples & Analysis
Any writer looking to master the art of storytelling will want to learn the literary devices in prose. Fiction and nonfiction writers rely on these devices to bring their stories to life, impact their readers, and uncover the core truths of life. You can, too, with mastery over the different literary devices! If you’re not…
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