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June 19, 2021On Writing Essentials
Much as I admire highly regimented and disciplined writers, that's simply not me. Believe me, I've tried! However, no matter how unstructured my writing day might be, there are five essentials that I ...
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December 22, 2016On Writing, with Tim McCaskell
Tim McCaskell drew on decades of experience as an activist to write Queer Progress: From Homophobia to Homonationalism (Between the Lines Books), which explores both the progress of LGBTQ activism and ...
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February 16, 2019Poetry School: Denise Levertov on form as a revelation
After reading poet Denise Levertov’s 1965 essay “Some Notes on Organic Form,” I had a revelation: I write poetry mainly in organic form. Given that the notion of the work of art as a self-germinating ...
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February 24, 2025Grant Writing 101: Timelines
You’ve got an idea, you’ve got working title, maybe you’ve even got a beta reader, or a mentor lined up. You’ve got your budget planned out (and know how many days/weeks or hours your project ...
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January 06, 2017Writing Through Pain
Carlyn Zwarenstein, in Opium Eater: The New Confessions, fuses memoir, reflective inquiry, cultural journalism, and literary investigation to look at opiates and what they have done for her. She is a ...
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October 05, 2016How To Make a Great Book Cover
The most important lesson I learned when I self-published my first book was that readers do judge a book by its cover. This is often framed as negative but as author and illustrator Annie Mok recently ...
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October 24, 2013Writing Fatherhood
What do we know about pregnancy1.I shall begin, by speaking. Incubate, introduce a glossary. Just on the tongue. Unpaginated.2.Something is growing, inside. Occupant. Connects whole milk to healthy industry. ...
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November 04, 2015On Writing Violence
Like all writers, I’m often asked what my writing is about. Especially with regards to my recently published collection of stories, Debris, and the novel that I am revising for publication next year ...
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February 08, 2019Poetry School: Keeping it real with Wordsworth
Lyric poetry. We say it casually, but what does it mean? The musical connotation is there, even if we don’t accompany our lyric poems with music. An inherent music, then. The lifts and falls. Rhythm. ...
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September 14, 2023The Pull of Two Needles
My first version of this essay was about how my two obsessions, knitting and writing, don’t compete with each other. I wrote at length about how they spin together in my brain in complicated steps, ...
