Craft and Creativity
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Newest Features
Comedy and the Deeper Truth
I’ve been thinking a lot about comedy this summer. We just launched a self-paced course called Writing Funny with the comedy writer Simon Taylor, and his presentation of comedy’s inner workings has made me reflect on my own experience of it. Comedy (I did standup, improv, and comedy writing when I was younger) has delivered…
How Poetry Can Shift Your Perspective
When you pay close attention to a poem, it invites you to radically rethink the way you see something. The craft tools poets have at their disposal help make this perspective-shifting possible. But how do poets accomplish this? In your own work, what can you do to transmit to the reader your own unique perspective?…
Managing the Middle
Tamara Dean is the author of Shelter and Storm, an essay collection forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press in 2025. Her work has appeared in The American Scholar, Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, the Guardian, One Story, Orion, The Southern Review, and other publications. Subscribe to her monthly email newsletter to get more writing tips and first dibs in her workshops….