Writing Tips
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Newest Articles
Persona Poetry: How to Write a Persona Poem
Persona poems allow poets to inhabit the minds of other people and write from their perspectives. If you’ve ever wanted to get inside someone’s brain, crawl around in it for a while, and come to a deeper understanding of their psyche, you might want to learn how to write a persona poem. The persona poetry…
Takeaways from AWP 2023
Our staff just got back from AWP 2023, a huge annual literary conference that was held in Seattle this year. To start with, here are the equivalent of 9,000 words in pictures from AWP itself, especially the book fair and offsite events which we were most involved in: Three of us were able to go:…
Writing Without Limits: Understanding the Lyric Essay
In literary nonfiction, no form is quite as complicated as the lyric essay. Lyrical essays explore the elements of poetry and creative nonfiction in complex and experimental ways, combining the subject matter of autobiography with poetry’s figurative devices and musicality of language. For both poets and creative nonfiction writers, lyric essays are a gold standard…
From Our Instructors
The 35 Best Gifts for Writers in Your Life
Professional authors chime in on gift ideas for writers—both during the holidays and any time of year. If you’re looking for the best gifts for writers in your life, look no further. There are lots of great gifts for creative writers—you just need to get in a writer’s head. With the help of some lovely…
What is the Setting of a Story? 5 Functions of Setting in Literature
A short story or novel without a setting is one without context—it occurs nowhere and at no particular time. But every person and everything in our everyday world occurs somewhere at some given time. As in real life, characters are connected in some way, or ways, to a given place. They’re always aware of where…
Becoming a Poet: Learn to Write Poetry!
Becoming a poet is no simple task, but with careful attention to language and the world around us, anyone can learn to write poetry. Even so, sitting down to put feelings to stanzas can seem impossible. With so many possibilities to tinker with language, where does the poet even begin? Whether you’ve just begun your…
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Writing Prompts
Jump-start your creativity with our writing prompts. Check back regularly for new prompts!
Show and Tell
Write a story or poem about an object with a lot of nostalgic value for you/the narrator. Do not, at any point, tell the reader explicitly what this object is.
Forgive and Forget
Write a story or poem about a time when you had to forget something to maintain a friendship or relationship.
Trash Day
Collect pieces of “junk writing”—spam emails, credit card advertisements, roadside billboards, bumper stickers, etc. Then, write a story or poem that uses all of the junk writing you collected.