Craft and Creativity
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Let Your Poems Be Weird
Poetry Recommendation: “Tomorrow, No, Tomorrower” by Bradley Trumpfheller Screenshotted from Poetry Foundation to preserve formatting. To read the poem’s text, find it here. I adore this poem. It gives me permission to be weird. It is kaleidoscopically uncategorizable, simultaneously provoking and resisting interpretation, finding joy and pleasure and play in…
The Emotional Evolution of Characters
What makes a character memorable? Why are some easily forgettable? There are characters from novels I read decades ago whom I still think about, while there are characters from novels I read only three months ago that I can barely recall. What’s the difference? Often, it’s a matter of connection between a character and the…
Finish Strong: Ending Nonfiction Pieces
I love the end of nonfiction pieces, because all the information has already been delivered. Now, we have an opportunity to feel the author’s mind directly. One ending that definitely takes this opportunity is in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It begins: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose…