Clik here to view.
Unsilencing the Writing Workshop
If you’ve taken creative writing classes then you probably know what it’s like to sit in silence while everyone else in the room discusses your work as if you aren’t even there. This is called...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Not to Expect From a Grad School Workshop
I teach in a graduate art school. I teach in a graduate art school where I used to be a student, and where I think a lot about giving my students as much value, as much strength and confidence as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Learning to Love the Loneliness of Writing After My MFA
When I went to grad school, I brought Harold. Harold is my dog. He’s 80 pounds, a pit bull terrier mixed with something larger than a pit bull terrier, meaning most of the few pins on the Craigslist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ten MFA Archetypes To Avoid (Becoming)
Is 2020 the year you finally go get that MFA you’ve been secretly contemplating since your undergrad years? While I know it can sometimes feel like MFA programs are living, breathing, real-life...
View ArticleClik here to view.
For Writers Graduating from an MFA During a Pandemic: Read Everything
The following talk was delivered at the Bennington Writing Seminars Commencement Address on January 16, 2021. * Congratulations to you all, Bennington’s 2021 MFA graduates. It’s an honor to be invited...
View ArticleClik here to view.
George Saunders on Overcoming Uncertainty in Writing
The following first appeared in Lit Hub’s The Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. It is from Story Club with George Saunders, a Substack publication and literary community where Saunders offers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why We Need More Writers Practicing Medicine (and Vice Versa)
In 2003, Rivka Galchen received her M.D. from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Once she was finally a doctor, she turned away from medicine forever. Seeing patients was not her calling;...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mary Ruefle on Bringing Joy to Your Writing Practice
The following talk was delivered at the Bennington Writing Seminars Commencement Address on June 11, 2022. * Photos by Mark Wunderlich.
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Bolt Bus Was My Biweekly Bardo: Life Between Writer and Daughter
I got an email recently about the demise of the Bolt Bus, and it sent me back 12 years to the hours of my life I spent riding it. I was part of the loyalty program for the low-priced line of red buses...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ada Zhang on the Complexity of Capturing Immigrants’ Lives in Fiction
Encountering the characters in The Sorrows of Others, Ada Zhang’s debut short story collection, was like running into a cast of the kinds of people who have populated my upbringing and adult life: a...
View Article
