Carole MertzLet the Horse Run—Encouragement for New Writers When Carol Smallwood and Christine Redman-Waldeyer broadcast a call for submissions to their planned collection that eventually became Writing after Retirement, I was a writing novice. I’d completed a 16-month course on…
Lita KurthA Schedule to Fit Your Personality Following the advice of many writers, I set myself a goal of writing a certain number of hours a day. Butt in chair no matter what! At least an hour a day was…
Laura StanfillOn Harnessing the Urge for Artifice Sitting in my living room, I wonder what the gold vintage sectional says about our family. It’s small, like the four of us, a just-right fit for our bodies, the nubby fabric loosened…
Nancy TownsleyOn Writing When a Book Birthday is Coming Up Simultaneously managing multiple writing projects can be tricky. My debut novel was released in April, and I’m working on a second one. I was humming along on the latter when…
Lisa K. BuchananA BUZZWORD-FREE ZONE Even I—as a patient—am weary of first-person cancer narratives. This again. How then to share my personal experience meaningfully without imposing on the reader’s (and my own) language fatigue? When writing “Thank you, Coco Chanel”…
Julie Esther FisherTurn to Language Feeling stuck, or just need some extra inspiration? Take it from language itself. When you’re in need of a spark, pull out your thesaurus, a fresh piece of paper, and embark on making lists of…
Callie Ann MarsalisiWRITE DOWN WHAT PEOPLE SAY Write down what people say–in a non-creepy way, of course! I’m a linguist in addition to being a writer, which means I did a lot of transcription in college. First of all, transcription…
Krista PuttlerFOUR EMOTIONAL CORNERS I often start a piece of writing with an immediate emotional response to something I have read, something I have overheard, or most recently (as in my piece Origin Story in Cleaver Magazine issue 48), in trying…
Danuta HincEXPLORE THE UNKNOWN As a writer, you are a creator, shaping landscapes, cities, and people from the ether. Remember, the worlds you build are not just settings—they are living, breathing spaces where time and space dissolve. Once a story…
Miranda KeskesTake Your Teenage Son’s Advice Okay, so maybe you don’t have a teenage son to listen to. That’s okay. A daughter will do, or a significant other, a close friend, a neighbor, even your hairdresser: basically, anyone outside your…
A Writing Tip by Billy DeanPOEMS FOR PEOPLE If poetry were a tree, its roots would be deep in the ground of human history, and its branches would be the way it evolved to reflect the practices of professional and…
Deborah Bacharach11 Ways of Writing About a Blackbird. . .or Anything Maybe you love description. You can spend an entire poem detailing the smell of a new shoe, the squeak it makes across a kitchen floor. Maybe you excel at…
Lindsey Godfrey EcclesProtect Your Weeds, Sharpen Your Edges Workshops can be helpful–even lifesavers–for the camaraderie and feedback they provide, but they can also be dangerous. So often I’ll be sitting around a table listening to writers talk about each others’…
Nancy JorgensenClickbait Gets a Bad Rap—But It Might Be the Key to Better Essays I waste too much time on word games. Eliminating letters to find the Wordle. Digging for clues to solve a Spelling Bee. Shuffling vowels to decipher…
Jeremy StelznerStay Close to It I’ve sat through hundreds of lectures on craft and writing workshops with authors of all sorts. Here’s what I’ve learned. Writing tips will ultimately contradict each other, craft essays often imply their way is the…
Andrea CaswellRevision at the Bitter End Ten years ago, I married a sailor. Sailing language soon entered my life, as sailors really do speak using specialized terms. My husband was building a wooden boat at the time, a 17-foot Swampscott…
David WatersForget Your Expertise You are a writer, but you likely have another career or important interest, and it is natural that you would want to write about that, or include an aspect of that in your story or poem.…
Beth KephartWriting about yourself? Why not start with a list? Of the things you loved enough to preserve them. Of the things you gave away. Of the things you outright lost. * Of the things in the pantry of your…
Terri LewisA Rabbit Hole of Words The scene: 1945. The action: Earl makes a move on his girl. I wrote the moon, the jalopy, the romance, but Alice pushed him away and flounced down the sidewalk. Then, to my surprise,…
Jessica KlimeshDON’T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET: THE BENEFITS OF MULTITASKING AS A WRITER When I was a kid, my brothers called me “Jess the Mess.” My young creative brain was always working, and I’d flit from one…
Eileen ToomeyFIND THE CONTRAST I had a happy childhood despite difficult circumstances due to my father’s alcoholism. Luckily, my mother had an ability to focus on what she called the “little things”—moments of clarity, beauty, and humor that shaped our…
Jessica KlimeshLET YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS DO THE WORK There’s no question that writing is hard work. But thinking too much about what you’re writing can make it even more difficult, hindering your progress. This may be especially true if you’ve received a lot of feedback…
David UpdikeKeeping the Dream Alive I almost never remember my dreams. This feels like a loss, because when I do, they offer glimpses into how the subconscious folds time and space to shape new narratives, much like an origamist folds…
Vanessa SaundersWRITING AS A SOMATIC PROCESS To expand your approach to writing prose sentences, practice typing out pages from writers you admire. Doing a page every day helps me get an understanding of how different kinds of prose feel under my fingers. I also get the…
Cameron MacKenzieHOW TO NOT END A STORY When I get to the end of a story I’m writing – especially if it’s a long and complicated story – I always want to really nail the landing. I want to stick…
Maggie HillStop Writing; Watch Basketball My introduction to poetry happened in Madison Square Garden, back when the New York Knicks were, well, The Knicks. It was the mid-1970s and I was a kid who liked basketball. I was a girl, so…
Andrea CaswellTHE ART (AND SCIENCE) OF REVISION Though most writers accept that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to revision, it doesn’t mean we don’t wish for one! It’s natural to want a “magic solution” for a process that can feel…
Sharon WhiteHARVESTING SUBMISSIONS FROM A WORK IN PROGRESS I’ve been writing a book about New Zealand painter Anna Caselberg. In 2019, I was a writer-in-residence in the house she lived in until her death in 2004. I loved being in…
A Writing Tip by Jackson TatgeDO YOU REALLY NEED A WEBSITE? What comes up when you type your own name into Google? Has the internet been able to accurately describe you as well as you would have hoped? Does it…
Kate E Lore SALVAGING A DEAD STORY Sometimes a story can start off so strong, but still fizzle out somewhere between the middle and the end. Maybe you’ve got a beautiful visceral spark, this pulsing idea from which you set…
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH PATRICK STRICKLAND In this Craft Chat, writer Patrick Strickland reveals how questions about loss and (dis)location guided him through years’ worth of drafts and revision, leading to the published version of his riveting story, “Screaming…
Merridawn DucklerNEVER READ CLEAVER’S WRITING TIPS I taught fiction at a writing institute. During our class on publishing a student mentioned flash fiction. You should, I said, explore every possibility. I always urged them to explore every possibility, I’d be…
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH ELAINE CHEKICH In “Accidental Roommates” (Issue 46), writer Elaine Chekich creates a protagonist whose traumatic losses lead the reader on a perilous journey through the streets of Hollywood. Chekich spoke to senior fiction editor Andrea…
Alex BarrHITCHING A RIDE Sometimes the struggle to write a poem gets messy. You long to pour the churning gruel into some satisfying container. It isn’t always messy, but when it is, there’s a solution. Like an urchin sneaking a…
Andrea CaswellTIPS FOR RELUCTANT REVISORS Ever dread having to revise a short story that’s not working? How about that essay without a main point? Me too. Revision is the reality check at the other end of a romp across the…
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH MAXIEJANE FRAZIER In her story “We Laugh” (Issue 46), MaxieJane Frazier conveys a lifetime’s worth of emotion and transformation in fewer than 300 words. In this Craft Chat with senior fiction editor Andrea Caswell, Frazier…
SV BertrandFinding the Right Narrative Distance When I teach my memoir class, my main goal is to help my students find the narrative tools and devices they need to see themselves as a character on the page. Even in memoir,…
Beth KephartYou in Random Order: A Jesse Ball Exercise Here’s an exclusive writing prompt from Beth Kephart, who recently conducted a masterclass for Cleaver called “The Art of the Telling Detail”. We are sharing this prompt from her workshop—if you…
J. Bradley MinnickWELL BEGUN IS HALF DONE Okay, so this writing tip is not going to be very popular—particularly in a culture that yells “go-go-go-do-do-do” and imagines that people can attend to more than one thing at a time (which,…
Rob GreeneTHE DEVIL FORM As a graduate student, my preparations to teach poetry to undergraduates made me hyperfocus on craft, and I ultimately decided to begin with teaching how to make an image. My full understanding of the makings of…
Alex BarrDUST ISN’T DEATH Those abandoned stories and poems gathering dust in a drawer—they may look like fossils but what if they’re embryos? I’d like to share my experience which I hope will be useful and encouraging. It’s about kissing…
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH T.S. BENDER T.S. Bender’s short story “Miguel’s Sancho” (Issue 45) is a skilled exploration of belonging and isolation, love and loss, and the darker sides of the human heart. In this Craft Chat, senior fiction…
Kathryn Silver-HajoINTERVIEW YOUR CHARACTERS Sometimes when I want to get to know a character better or they just aren’t ringing true on the page, I request an interview. Like, really. Depending on who your character is, you might have a…
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH SOFI GUVEN Sofi Guven’s short story “Proximity” (Issue 45) is an exploration of people’s boundaries, both emotional and physical, in a world in which we are all connected. In this chat with fiction editor Andrea…
Andrea CaswellVULNERABILITY, AUDACITY, AND FREEDOM: A CRAFT CHAT WITH MARIANA SABINO In Mariana Sabino’s short story “The Undercurrent” (Issue 38), locals at a bar in a beach town are fascinated by, and unwelcoming to, a widow who arrives in their…
Talya JankovitsTHE DENOUEMENT: HOW DOES IT END FOR REJECTED WRITERS? I have been having a hard time with endings lately. Poems, short stories, dare I admit, essays. I’ve been considering this a lot, what this could mean, all these unfinished…
A Writing Tip by Federico EscobarDIM THE SCREEN TO TURN OFF YOUR BRAIN There is a well-intentioned person who gets in the way of my ideas bursting onto the page. This person is eager to please, wants to make sure…
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH KIM MAGOWAN In her story “The Back Nine” (Issue 45), Kim Magowan shows us a character with a growing list of personal losses, trying to come to terms with the lost connections that still haunt…
A Writing Tip by Clifford ThompsonDUALITY IN THE PERSONAL ESSAY Duality is the soul of the personal essay. I sometimes tell students that while the province of speeches and op-ed articles is certainty, the domain of the personal essay is…
A Writing Tip by Snowden WrightTRIAL AND ERROR At an Oxford, Mississippi, courthouse last summer, I sat in on the trial for the most recent person to try to assassinate my father, a circuit court judge. Things went poorly for…