Craft and Creativity
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Newest Features
Profiles in Craft: Jack Smith
About the instructor: Jack Smith’s MA is in creative writing, his PhD in English. He has published six novels and four nonfiction books. His novels include: If Winter Comes (2020), RUN (2020), Miss Manners for War Criminals (2017), Being (2016), Icon (2014), and Hog to Hog, which won the 2007 George Garrett Fiction Prize and was published by Texas Review Press in 2008. He has published…
On Poetry and the Limits of Language
Poetry nestles itself in the margins of language, speaking what words normally cannot speak. A good poem challenges language to say new and surprising things, or to make new and surprising connections that conventional prose struggles to communicate. How does a poem achieve this? Let’s take a closer look. Want more craft tips? Be the…
On Experimenting in Fiction
You’re likely familiar with the core elements of fiction writing. You might even excel at using them to tell an interesting story. But after a while, the conventions of good storytelling might seem a little dry or constricting—aren’t there other ways to tell great stories? Once writers have learned the rules, they can start learning…