Craft and Creativity
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Newest Features
Writing About Your Obsessions
Close Study: “One Arm” by Tennessee Williams Read it here, in Internet Archive. Tennessee Williams is regarded as one of the best playwrights of the 20th century, and rightfully so. But what makes his plays so amazing—their tension, their neurotic and conflicted characters, and their lonesome, complicated settings—can be found just as readily in his…
In Praise of a Front-Loaded Nonfiction Book
I learned a lot about structuring a nonfiction book this year, from reading the psychology bestseller No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz. I can’t recommend the book itself highly enough, to everyone. One of its jacket blurbs reads, “this may be the most transformational book you’ll ever read.” That has been my experience, even if I wish…
Poetry and the Creative Process
Poetry Recommendation: “What Use Is Knowing Anything If No One Is Around” by Kaveh Akbar Retrieved from The New Yorker. What use is knowing anything if no one is around to watch you know it? Plants reinvent sugar daily and hardly anyone applauds. Once as a boy I sat in a corner covering my ears, singing…